TALK ABOUT SPEECHLESS

Stephen Miller’s Plot for Sickening Crackdown on Free Speech Is Leaked

Miller has pushed for extraordinary measures to force journalists to reveal their sources.

With Susie Wiles out of the picture, incoming White House chief of staff Stephen Miller is eyeing a disturbing assault on free speech, according to a report.

Miller, 41, has been advocating that President Donald Trump enlist the Justice Department to pursue criminal investigations, on national security grounds, into journalists who rely on confidential government sources for their reporting, The Atlantic reports.

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The White House and the DOJ—led by Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche—have even entertained the prospect of arresting journalists to force them to cough up their sources, three people familiar with the matter told the outlet.

Wiles, 69, had pushed back against the scheme, which would amount to a blatant assault on the First Amendment.

Miller, however, was all for the idea, the insiders told The Atlantic. He insisted that it would not take long for the journalists to give up their sources.

A DOJ spokesperson told The Atlantic, “This is absolutely false,” without elaborating. A White House spokesperson told the outlet that unauthorized leaks will “NEVER be tolerated” and that anyone responsible “must be held accountable.”

The White House and the DOJ did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s questions.

While Wiles often served as a “guardrail” against Trump’s worst impulses, Miller is expected to act as an “accelerant,” The Atlantic notes.

One person familiar with Trump’s decision to promote Miller told The Atlantic that the president wants someone who will “crack skulls” and that the president has no interest in being “reined in.”

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“Stephen is the only one who gets stuff done,” a frustrated Trump would say in the days leading up to the GOP’s midterm disaster, a person close to the White House told the outlet. “I need more people who get stuff done.”

The Trump administration has already made extraordinarily aggressive attempts to unmask the confidential sources of reporters.

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In January, Kash Patel’s FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter who had been digging into the Trump administration. The agency confiscated multiple devices, but a judge eventually ruled that the administration couldn’t examine the data on her devices.

That did not deter the DOJ from subsequently seeking to compel four journalists—three from The Washington Post and one from The Wall Street Journal—to testify about their sources before a grand jury in June, threatening them with contempt-of-court findings that could land them behind bars. The subpoenas were shelved when the publications pushed back.

In July, the DOJ subpoenaed three New York Times journalists who reported on Trump’s Qatari-gifted luxury jet. The subpoenas sought to compel the reporters to testify about their sources who provided information about security concerns with the president’s new jet, and even sought to obtain phone records from the journalists and their relatives. The agency later withdrew its subpoenas after a federal judge criticized them for shoddy legal work.

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