A former chair of the Republican National Committee shredded President Donald Trump’s latest executive order targeting a prominent Democratic Party law firm as an act of childish retribution.
“This is just not normal. These are the musings and actions of a petty, afraid little man sitting behind a big desk,” Michael Steele, who’s also a co-host on MSNBC’s The Weekend, told the network in an appearance on Friday’s broadcast of Deadline: White House with anchor Nichole Wallace.
“He’s a scared little boy who feels this is the only way he can get payback,” Steele raged on.
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Earlier this week, the Republican president signed a new directive banning the federal government from hiring either Perkins Coie or any contractors working with the firm. The directive also revoked its employees’ security clearances and barred them from entering federal buildings.
In the Book of Trump, the firm’s past sins include opposing no less than 65 of the president’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as coordinating the opposition research for former Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, which eventually yielded allegations that Russian intelligence had intervened to help Trump win the election.
Steele did not reserve his ire on Friday for the president himself after host Wallace pointed out that other law firms representing people on Trump’s extensive list of political enemies have so far failed to speak up against the recent order against Perkins Coie.
“[Ex-Vice President] Mike Pompeo was recently tossed off the island in the game of Survivor that is Trumpism,” Wallace quipped, citing the firms representing former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Defence Secretary Mike Esper, former White House General Counsel Don McGahn and former National Security Advisor John Bolton as potential targets.
Lamenting the silence among members of the legal community, Steele, himself a former attorney, replied: “What is the point of the oath that we swore as lawyers, right? We’re here to defend those who otherwise would be persecuted by the very people like Donald Trump!”
