Despite words to the contrary, President Donald Trump is a man who never lets a good slight go to waste.
It is true that Trump, commenting on taking revenge on his enemies, said that the sweetest revenge is success.
It is also true that he, among other payback initiatives, revoked the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter orchestrated by former Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It was the letter that falsely said Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell was Russian disinformation.
Trump also revoked Blinken’s security clearance along with Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s former national security advisor, and Trump enemies Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Security clearance allows an individual to access levels of classified information. Many of those out of the government, like the 51 former intelligence officials, use it as prestigious resume enhancers in the private sector.
Revoking the clearances is payback, no matter what Trump says. His deeds often contradict his words. And, as everybody knows, payback is a bitch, especially when it comes from a man who remembers the boy who gave him a wedgie in middle school.
Which brings us to Trump’s war with the Associated Press, the once objective international news service that, like many other once respected media outlets, has gone progressive and woke.
Trump, who calls Associated Press reporters “radical left lunatics,” earlier this month banned AP reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One.
The AP accused Trump of a “targeted attack” on the freedom of the press.
The dispute ostensibly centers on Trump’s renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The Associated Press, to Trump’ irritation, continues to call it the Gulf of Mexico, because that is how it is recognized by its international audience.
Said Trump, “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.”
While the AP has filed a suit to regain access, Trump’s ban is payback for more than just a dispute over the renaming of the gulf. It goes deeper than that.
His animus toward the AP goes back to Trump’s first term as president when, in an act of outright unprofessional and biased behavior, a team of four AP reporters secretly met and colluded with the FBI to take down Trump through Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, who was under FBI investigation.
Manafort was later found guilty of bank and tax fraud and sentenced to prison. However, the case had nothing to do with Trump, although the AP and the FBI sought to make a connection. Trump pardoned Manafort in 2020.
The prosecutor in the Manafort case was Andrew Weisman, who was one of the FBI agents the AP reporters met with to exchange information, as though the reporters were an arm of the FBI.
According to a June 11, 2017, FBI write up of the April 11 meeting—originally obtained by Judicial Watch— “The purpose of the meeting, as was explained to SSA [supervisory special agent, redacted] was to obtain documents from the reporters that were related to their investigative reports on Paul Manafort.”
The reporters also provided the FBI with information about a storage locker along with the code number that Manafort had in Virginia which the FBI later raided.
The FBI write up of the meeting suggested that the AP reporters also pushed for a criminal investigation of Manafort for violating FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act).
The Associated Press, which turned journalism on its head, did not report or write anything about the meeting or its attempt to help the FBI go after Manafort and Trump. Such is the state of AP journalism today.
Payback is a bitch.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com.
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