Former Senior trump Administration Official Endorses Biden in Damning Video

'What we saw was terrifying': Former senior Trump official Miles Taylor endorses Joe Biden in damning video

Former DHS chief of staff accuses president of pitching 'deliberate' child separation policy and 'cutting off' assistance to California wildfire victims



A former political appointee at the Department of Homeland Security has endorsed Joe Biden in a damning video produced by a Republican group against Donald Trump.

"What we saw week in and week out, and for me, after two and a half years in that administration, was terrifying," he said in a video from Republican Voters Against Trump. "We would go in to try to talk to him about a pressing national security issue – cyberattack, terrorism threat – he wasn't interested in those things. To him, they weren't priorities."

Mr Taylor, who had served as DHS chief of staff under former secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, is one of the highest-ranking former administration officials to endorse the president's rival.

"Given what I have experienced in the administration, I have to support Joe Biden for president, and even though I am not a Democrat, even though I disagree on key issues, I'm confident that Joe Biden will protect the country and I'm confident that he won't make the same mistakes as this president," he said in the video.

The president wanted to "restart" a practice of separating children from their families at the US-Mexico border following its dissolve in 2018, despite growing humanitarian crisis forcing thousands of children into federal custody while their migrant families were prosecuted, Mr Taylor has claimed.

"He wanted to go further and have a deliberate policy of ripping children away from their parents to show those parents they shouldn't come to the border in the first place," Mr Taylor said in the video. "He didn't want us to tell him it was illegal anymore because he knew that there were, and these were his words, he knew he had 'magical authorities'."

Mr Taylor also authored an op-ed for The Washington Post, published on Monday, that echoes the allegations and illustrates a president who has "governed by whim, political calculation and self-interest."

Agencies involved with the initial "zero tolerance" border decision "were unprepared to implement the policy, causing a disastrous backlog of detentions that ultimately left migrant parents and their children separated," Mr Taylor wrote.

In that column, he claimed that the president sough to "dump" people entering the US without legal permission into "Democratic-leaning sanctuary cities and states to overload their authorities, as he insisted several times."

The president's "indiscipline was also a constant source of frustration," he claimed, pointing to a February 2019 meeting to avoid a possible government shutdown in which the president held a phone briefing with DHS to "discuss the color of the wall."

"He was particularly interested in the merits of using spray paint and how the steel structure should be coated," Mr Taylor said. "Episodes like this occurred almost weekly."

The president's campaign did not immediately return The Independent's request for comment.

Mr Taylor also claimed that the president had directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to "cut off the money and no longer give individual assistance" to people in California following deadly wildfires in the state.

"He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses have burned down in a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn't support him and that politically it wasn't a base for him," Mr Taylor said.

The president wanted to "exploit" the DHS "for his own political purposes to fuel his own agenda," said Mr Taylor, alleging that officials who continue to serve in the administration have warned him that a second term – if the president is re-elected – would be "no-holds-barred" and "shock-and-awe".

Mr Taylor is among several high-profile former administration officials who have publicly denounced the president, including former national security chief John Bolton.

Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House communications director, has also endorsed Mr Biden for president.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-dhs-biden-2020-election-border-a9675001.html

 

The stories that have already come out during this "Presidency" are astonishing. What former Chief of Staff of the Directer of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, an ardent Republican and trump appointee, described is astonishing. For trump to demand that FEMA withhold federal funds from victims of California wildfires who had lost their homes, lost everything in many cases, because trump was in a rage that "they" hadn't voted for him (and many likely did) would have been an enormous story in any other administration.

But coming from trump's? To his supporters, it is nothing. The reply here? "Lol. Trump never met this guy." It doesn't come from a trump supporter, but it easily could have. What does that comment even mean? It is absolving trump of any blame, despite trump being quoted as being directly involved with the effort to withhold federal funds from a disaster simply because it happened in California.

A perfect example of the mindset of a trump supporter. That trump must be blameless because he must be. He's trump, so he cannot be held responsible, for that or anything else. Why? Because trump himself proclaims that he isn't responsible for anything that could be described as "bad" or a "mistake," because as far as trump is concerned, he never makes a mistake or makes a bad decision. Never. trump is so absolute in that belief that he goes into a rage if there is even a hint of disagreement from those who surround him.

trump and those who work for trump remind me of another leader who saw himself as infallible and demanded strict obedience from the people closest to him. On D-Day, that leader had so intimidated his General Staff that even though time was of the essence to move forces to Normandy while there still might be time to make a difference, no one dared to wake that leader up. Why? They were afraid to wake him up. It was as "simple" as that and as complex.

Such fear exists in those who hold positions of authority around trump. trump has rid himself of those strong enough to disagree with him. All that remains are enablers. Meanwhile, our republic teeters on the brink. A national election is at risk. A president openly works to disrupt our elections and prevent citizens from being able to vote. That is truth, not fiction.