Members of the so-called "resistance" within the Trump administration celebrated when one of their own wrote a bombshell anonymous New York Times op-ed denouncing the president.
A Trump administration official told the Daily Beast on condition of anonymity that the members of the group "went around fist-bumping each other" when the op-ed came out.
"We see ourselves as rebels,” another intra-administration "resister" said.
Not all of the group's members are convinced the op-ed was enough, however.
"If there are senior people in leadership positions and these are their observations and feelings," a senior State Department official told the website, "then their efforts can’t just stop at the op-ed or move to mitigate the president here and there. They need to take steps that are more bold. Publicly resign, en masse.”
Without a large-scale sign of resistance, that State official said, the op-ed amounts to little more than "reputational insurance."
Another Trump official who has been quietly subverting the president said they fear it will result in a dictatorial purge.
"It could motivate Trump to pursue the [Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdogan-style purge of the bureaucracy that he hasn’t pursued yet,” a Justice Department trial attorney told the Beast. “Some of the Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys are serious people committed to law enforcement. What if Trump were to replace them with loyalist hacks from the campaign, like Boris Epshteyn?"
"We’d like to think that the Senate wouldn’t allow it," the person added, "but we can’t be sure."
Read the entire report via the Beast.
