Donald Trump’s return to the White House has some critics worried — others are ready for a fight

With Donald Trump poised to pack the American law enforcement apparatus with loyalists who could implement an agenda of revenge on his behalf, some of his most prominent critics are bracing for possible impacts they may face.

Recently, Georgia Representative Barry Loudermilk used his perch atop a House Administration Subcommittee to issue a report that called for the incoming Trump justice department to investigate and prosecute former House January 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney for what he describes as “witness tampering” — in actuality the then-Wyoming congresswoman’s efforts to help ex-Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson find new counsel after she was pressured to withhold information from the panel.

Trump has also called for the entirety of the now-defunct House panel to be jailed, and he has also routinely called for critics and political opponents to face criminal sanctions as well.

He filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and the Iowa-based pollster whose pre-election survey found — incorrectly — that he was set to lose the Hawkeye State to Vice President Kamala Harris by a double-digit margin.

His allies, including his FBI Director-designate Kash Patel, have also made a habit of suing media organizations and critics — often on frivolous grounds — and come January 20, Patel and his MAGA friends could have a free hand to deploy the full weight of the U.S. government against people they deem insufficiently sycophantic towards the new president.

It’s a long list, including a group Patel named in an appendix to his memoir, Government Gangsters, as members of an “executive branch deep state.”

The former National Security Council staffer has repeatedly claimed in media appearances that such persons, including the two most recent Democratic presidents, the three most recent Democratic presidential nominees and other prominent law enforcement and intelligence officials who’ve incurred ire from Republicans over the years, deserve be jailed.

Now, some of Trump’s loudest critics are bracing for his return to power. Others are ready for a fight.

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Mark Zaid, a Washington, D.C., national security lawyer who has advised whistleblowers and critics, has gone so far as to say that certain clients of his should find a reason to be beyond the reach of American law enforcement around the time of Trump’s return to power in just over a month.

He told Politico he’s encouraged “a small number of people” to “take a vacation outside of the country around the time of inauguration, just to see what happens.”

The range of what could happen should Trump turn the power of government against his perceived enemies is quite broad indeed.

In addition to contriving reasons to investigate, arrest and prosecute political foes, a Trump administration bent on revenge could subject critics to invasive IRS audits, make it difficult for critics to travel abroad or access financial services, and could harass and intimidate them with all manner of compulsory process short of arrest.

A number of prominent pro-democracy commentators and activists say there are already efforts in place to prepare for the possibility that the new administration will unleash untold amounts of harassment towards people who vexed the president during his first term in office. But some of Trump’s most vocal critics aren’t letting themselves be intimidated.

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Rick Wilson, the former Republican ad-man who co-founded and still helps run the Lincoln Project Super PAC, told The Independent that his organization plans to return to messaging that helped drive down Trump’s popularity as he ran for re-election in 2020.

The group focused on Trump’s failures and incompetence rather than the more amorphous “pro-democracy” messaging that dominated the 2024 cycle.

“Democracy is unbelievably important, but unfortunately, it also didn’t persuade most Americans … it’s important now to use this period of time that we’re about to enter into to clarify that he’s not going to deliver for the people who believed he would deliver —  he’s already saying, ‘I can’t lower prices, I can’t do this, I can’t do that,’ and we feel like there’s an opportunity space ahead of us where you know our kind of messaging is going to be effective and that we’re going to be able to get in there and make a persuasive case that you need to continue on with an idea of opposition to this guy,” said Wilson, who stressed that his organization would not be part of what he described as the “pink pussy hat crowd” that dominated anti-Trump circles during his first few years in office.

Wilson, who has had to fight lawsuits from Trump allies in recent months, said he knows it is possible that Trump’s administration will go beyond civil litigation this time.

But Wilson stressed that he would not back down from any fights.

“I suspect I’ll be spending a non-zero amount of my time dealing with this kind of garbage, dealing with congressional committees, whatever it turns out to be. But I think it’s incumbent upon people like me to again, not comply in advance and to not work from fear,” he said. “It’s not a productive emotion after a certain point, and I decline to live that way right now — we’re going to keep doing what we do, and if they stop me … they have to pull me out feet first. I’m not just going to bow down to these people.”

Wilson added that over his years in politics he has been “very careful not to commit crimes,” including avoiding “the stupid s***” he described as campaign finance violations, with the aid of “very good legal counsel” to tell him when to shut up and not do certain things.

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Another prominent Trump critic, conservative attorney George Conway, said he doesn’t worry about being placed in the crosshairs of the new administration because he’s “got nothing to investigate.”

Conway, an ex-corporate litigator who was previously married to Trump aide and GOP political strategist Kellyanne Conway, told The Independent that his life is “pretty simple.”

“I don’t pay off porn stars. I don’t have any funky investments. I don’t have any cash businesses. All my money is invested in mutual funds because I spent 30 years at a law firm where we were only allowed to invest in mutual funds,” he said.

He added that the only conceivable way he could see himself being attacked by Trump or his allies is through defamation litigation, which he said “would be great” because it would allow him to take discovery.

“I’m also not afraid of going right out after them and making their lives miserable— by going after me they’re just going to give me a platform,” he said.

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Some Trump critics who’ve been in the crosshairs of the soon-to-be-president’s inner circle are more concerned because of their one-time proximity to Trump.

Olivia Troye, a former homeland security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, told The Independent she worries most about the people around Trump, such as Patel, incoming deputy White House chief of staff Steven Miller, Office of Management and Budget director-designate Russell Vought and others like them because they see her as more of a turncoat due to her former proximity to the center of power.

Troye said she worries about what someone such as Patel, who has funded multiple lawsuits and legal threats against her, could do in power because he’ll have the backing of Trump and the support of Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi, another loyalist to the incoming president.

She also said she’s thinking about making security arrangements for herself and her family because Trump and his allies have a habit of exposing their adversaries to death threats and harassment by publicizing their names.

“This is a crazy time, and when they do things, we’ve seen that sometimes people get radicalized and they act on it. So I just need to do what’s best for me and my family,” Troye said.

Wilson said he believes Trump will “absolutely attempt to abuse power in a grotesque and profound way” by going after critics — if not him, than people like him.

But he cautioned those who might end up in the crosshairs about “complying in advance,” and warned that those lower down on the administration’s organizational chart won’t have the same protections Trump has been given.

“Donald Trump is immune because of the Supreme Court, but not every person in his administration is immune from liability if they abuse their power,” he said. “We do not yet live in a world where there are no consequences for the guys like Kash Patel or or or other people inside the administration.”