Trump insiders blasted for 'convenient Monday morning bravery' after enabling the former president's four years of chaos

In a withering column for the Daily Beast, Erin Gloria Ryan tapped the brakes on the wave of adulation being lavished on former members of Donald Trump's administration who waited to dish to reporters about how dangerous the former president was until after he lost the 2020 presidential election.

While Ryan focused on Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley for divulging some of the most frightening tales about the president -- Trump's desire to use the military to quell protests as well as launch a war with Iran to save his presidency -- she wrote that the military man is not the only one wanting to whitewash their time in the administration.

Included in her rogue's gallery of administration officials engaging in "Monday morning bravery" was former Attorney General Bill Barr and ex-senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and even Jared Kushner -- all of whom held their tongues while negotiating book deals.

"... few paper tree fates are as undignified as that which awaits those that hit printing presses at the same time that a former Trump sycophant is launching a rehab tour. Imagine being a tree your whole life, and then having your afterlife devoted to insisting that some former government official's tepid imaginary resistance to President Trump was actually a form of bravery that saved America," she wrote before zeroing in on Milley.

"While he's leaking now, Milley's supposed courage while Trump was president did not involve speaking publicly or even getting stories to the press when that might have mattered about behind-the-scenes warmongering, which, given Trump's tendency to pay more attention to press coverage than to security briefings, would have probably been a more effective way to blow that plan up," she suggested. "Further, Milley and other publicity-seeking former Trump associates' alleged fights 'from the inside' did not reflect any understanding of Trump's real power—which wasn't the former president's ability to manipulate the government, but rather his cult leader-like ability to manipulate his frothing followers into doing just about anything."

With that, Ryan ridiculed multiple Trump officials who have made it their mission to clean up their reputations -- and cash in -- after standing by for four years and biting their tongues.

In an extended and brutal rant she charged, "Do writers depicting those who were complicit as secret heroes think their spin is believable? It wasn't believable when it was the Actually Don McGahn's Secret Bravery Saved America news cycle, the Anonymous Miles Taylor The Quiet Hero cycle, several cycles of Ivanka and Jared Are Privately Urging The President To Be Less Bad, a round of John Kelly Always Hated The Guy, a hearty dose of Lt. General McMaster Pounds The Table And Yells 'Sir!' Possibly Loudly Enough To Save the Republic, General James "Mad Dog" Mattis Has Some Tough Talk After The Fact, Bill Barr Was Actually Secretly Doing Smart Things, or the Mike Pompeo Was Tough And Presidential this Whole Time cycle. (Coming soon! Kellyanne Conway pretends that she didn't spend the last six years blabbing to journalists from the Times on down as she promotes her 'tell-all.')"

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