'How is that not an abuse of power?' Karoline Leavitt grilled over Trump retaliation

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt faced questions over whether President Donald Trump was abusing his power by ordering the Department of Justice to investigate two former Department of Homeland Security officials who defied him.

At a White House event last week, Trump signed executive orders asking the DOJ to investigate former DHS officials Christopher Krebs and Miles Taylor. Both men angered the president during his first term by speaking out against him.

"The president has long said that it would be an abuse of power for a president to direct prosecutors to investigate him," White House correspondent Jonathan Swan told Leavitt on Tuesday. "Last week, President Trump explicitly directed the Justice Department to scrutinize Chris Krebs to see if it can find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing."

"How is that not an abuse of power to direct the Justice Department to look into an individual, a named individual?" he asked.

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"Look, the president signed that executive order," Leavitt replied. "It's the position of the president in this White House that it's well within his authority to do it."

"Otherwise, he wouldn't have signed it," she added. "And he signed it, and that's his policy."

Watch the video below from Newsmax.