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“I call Stephen (Miller) ‘Trump’s brain,’” said Kevin McCarthy. Because seeds, pulp, and juice [1]
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Date: 2025-01-16
As he works out his priorities, Mr. Miller appears to have learned two key lessons from the first Trump term.
The first is to flood the zone. He believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies — Democrats, the media, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and portions of the federal bureaucracy — are depleted and only have so much bandwidth for outrage and opposition. Mr. Miller has told people that the goal is to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity.
The second lesson has been to operate with as much secrecy as possible to prevent anyone from finding ways to obstruct the Trump agenda. As a congressional staffer, Mr. Miller was freewheeling in his digital communications. But since working for Mr. Trump, who doesn’t use email and regards people who take notes with suspicion, he puts almost nothing in writing. Instead, he works through emissaries.
The protectiveness around the executive orders is particularly notable. An incoming administration would usually send the drafts to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where a career lawyer — walled off from the outgoing administration’s political appointees — reviews them for form and legality and suggests improvements. For the most part, Mr. Trump’s first transition is said to have followed that practice.
But Mr. Miller is using a team of lawyers from outside the Justice Department to vet the orders, a person with knowledge of the situation said — a sign of Trump aides’ general distrust of the Justice Department, which brought three special counsel investigations into Mr. Trump and twice indicted him.
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