Miles Taylor, who served as President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for homeland security during Trump’s first term, warned Monday that Stephen Miller’s elevation to White House chief of staff could bring a new level of “chaos” to the administration.

According to Taylor, Miller’s new position gives Trump’s longtime adviser greater power to pursue the “shock-and-awe blitz” he has been advocating for a decade. As chief of staff, Miller would also help coordinate White House operations and manage access to the president, making the role consequential for how policy proposals reach Trump. Taylor said the risk is heightened by several developments following the midterm elections.

Trump began posting threats on social media over the weekend, escalating his claims of election fraud and announcing that he had ordered the Justice Department to investigate Democrats who were seeking to investigate members of his Cabinet. On Sunday, Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared on CNN and made statements suggesting that the investigation and prosecution of congressional opponents could follow.

The Atlantic also reported that the White House and the Justice Department had discussed jailing journalists to force them to disclose their sources. Taylor said those developments were particularly concerning in light of Miller’s new role. He said former Chief of Staff Susie Wiles opposed the plans, while Miller supported them, making his promotion a clear indication of which approach Trump favors.

Taylor, who worked with Miller for more than two years, called his appointment “among the most dangerous, foolish, and self-defeating actions we’ve ever seen an American president take.”

While other officials in the first Trump administration understood how lawless Trump could be and pushed back against him, Taylor said, “Stephen, on the other hand, was the one person in Trump’s orbit I never once heard criticize him. Not because he was blind to it. But because Trump was the vehicle for Stephen’s agenda.”

Taylor recalled an Oval Office meeting involving Trump, Miller and several other administration officials after Trump had lost a ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Taylor said Trump was furious and declared that he wanted to eliminate the judges who had ruled against him.

“‘We need to get rid of the judges,’ he declared, pounding his fist on the desk. ‘They are ruining this,’” Taylor wrote. “Most people in that type of situation would find a diplomatic way to let the moment pass. To not take the president seriously. Instead, Stephen replied: ‘Yes sir, a country without judges would help.’”

Taylor said former White House officials understood that Miller was “not a stabilizer in that building” but rather “an accelerant of the president’s absolute worst impulses.” Before Taylor left the first Trump administration, he said, Miller showed him a locked drawer in his second-floor West Wing office. Miller allegedly said it contained draft executive orders for a second term, each designed to test the limits of presidential power and move those challenges to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.

“It would be a ‘shock-and-awe blitz,’ he grinned,” Taylor recalled.

Taylor said that during Trump’s second term, the administration has deployed the National Guard in U.S. cities, attempted to end birthright citizenship by executive decree, impounded money appropriated by Congress, dismissed inspectors general and thousands of civil servants, and openly discussed invoking the Insurrection Act. Miller has also spoken about suspending habeas corpus, according to Taylor.

With Miller now leading the West Wing, Taylor warned that Trump could intensify efforts to seek revenge against political enemies, abandon Ukraine and force a settlement with Russia, reduce U.S. involvement in NATO or withdraw from the alliance entirely, and allow his agencies to be personally micromanaged by his “MAGA-obsessed” chief of staff.

“Stephen’s ‘locked drawer’ is now open, and there’s no one standing in between him and the president,” Taylor concluded. “So Americans can expect serious confrontation, not course correction, from the Trump administration — the likes of which we’ve never seen.”

Source: Alternet