Trump Ousts Key Tariffs Official Over Petty Need for Revenge
The White House fired an official because he knew the guy who criticized President Donald Trump in the famous 'Anonymous' op-ed in The New York Times seven years ago, The Washington Post reported Friday.
The executive director of the Office of Trade Relations at Customs and Border Protection, George E. Bogden, was abruptly asked to leave his post over apparent ties to Miles Taylor, the author of the anonymous 2018 op-ed, sources told the Post. Taylor was Trump's chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security at the time, and the piece revealed his and his colleagues' internal efforts to thwart parts of the president's agenda. Taylor made his authorship public in 2020 after leaving his position as chief of staff.
The president has reportedly been obsessed with the op-ed ever since. He ordered the Department of Justice to investigate Bogden's seemingly thin ties to Taylor, despite Bodgen's centrality to implementing the president's absurd tariff scheme. Bodgen's job was to listen to the trade industry's complaints and grievances amid the economic chaos spurred by Trump in recent weeks.
It's unclear what the DOJ found to merit Bogden's ousting, and there are few ties connecting the two men other than a Facebook photo of Bogden at Taylor's wedding in 2019, one year before Taylor revealed he wrote the op-ed. Sources told the Post that Bogden and Taylor 'have not been close' and that 'few Trump allies, including Bogden, were aware of Taylor's role in writing the piece at the time it was published or by the time of the wedding.'
Taylor's humiliating revelation to the public clearly instilled a deep sense of paranoia in the president that hasn't dissipated even seven years later. 'From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief's comments and actions,' Taylor wrote at the time. 'Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.'
As Trump works to rid his administration of any Taylor-like officials, his firing of a yearslong supporter like Bogden (while he continues to defend a Cabinet member who shared national security information over text) is a stark reminder that the president values unwavering loyalty above all else.
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