Hear that? It’s the silence of the Trump turncoats.
During the first Trump administration, a new path to fame opened up. You went to work for the president, quit (or were fired), started attacking Trump on social media, landed a round on the media circuit, and voila, instant book deal and guest booking on “Pod Save America.”
The turncoats have gone quiet during Trump’s second presidency as loyalty tests seem to be keeping the rats at bay. That’s why it was so surprising to hear about Roger Alford.
Alford was, until recently, a deputy assistant attorney general working on antitrust issues in the Department of Justice. He was fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi for insubordination.
What he chose as his hill to die on with the administration was opposing the HPE-Juniper telecoms merger that his superiors had settled. Alford claimed that by approving the merger, his former colleagues had “perverted justice and acted inconsistent with the rule of law.” They had succumbed to pressure from corporations. They had become nothing less than “MAGA-In-Name-Only lobbyists.”
His narrative of events, while endorsed by Elizabeth Warren, is puzzling because even the Trump intelligence community supported the DOJ’s deal as it’s what the country needs to beat China’s Huawei on AI, cloud computing and 5G.
The reality, however, is that generally speaking, to people like Alford, it doesn’t matter what the facts of the case are. They just need to find any reason to turn on their GOP boss so they can generate some self-serving headlines.
Alford is following on the well-worn and exhausted path trodden by his fellow Trump turncoats. Remember how often one of these guys popped up during the first administration?
There was Omarosa Newman, who previously collaborated with Trump on “The Apprentice” and later went to work for him in the White House. She then turned on him and wrote a tell-all claiming there was an audio recording of Trump uttering a racial slur, which has yet to emerge.
There was John Bolton, the uber-mustachioed and uber-hawkish diplomat who worked as Trump’s national security adviser until he quit because the president wasn’t starting enough wars. Turn on CNN or MSNBC or the Weather Channel, and you’re likely to find Bolton inveighing against something Trump is doing.
There was Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, who in 2018 published an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times declaring “I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration.”
Filled with overwrought language like, “We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example,” it made a splash at the time.
All of these ended at the same place. They get a Rachel Maddow segment, a book tour, 15 seconds of fame — and then the attention dries up. While the turncoats fade from view, Donald Trump remains.
Thankfully, loyalty tests have helped make sure Trump gets a dedicated staff this time around. So what gives with Alford?
Alford has a long history of cozying up to China. That includes congratulating Beijing over its “rising economic power and its prominence in the competition sphere” and calling Trump’s proposed trade war with China “ludicrous and uninformed.”
Alford looks like another deep stater who slipped through the net. Thankfully, to Trump’s great benefit and the country’s, these turncoats are much rarer than they used to be.
Even better, the United States will soon be able to go toe-to-toe with China and Huawei, regardless of whether Alford likes it or not.