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Stephen Miller Desperate to Stave Off Accountability for Losing Texas
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Deep in a worthwhile profile of Stephen Miller from Zeteo, it describes his fear that Democrats will come after him.In these private, candid moments, Miller has told others that he’s convinced Democrats are going to be coming after him, his family, and his colleagues maybe for the rest of his days. Miller has talked about civil lawsuits, and Capitol Hill investigations and subpoenas – but perhaps the thing that stands tallest in his mind is local and state prosecutors who he says want to put him in a “prison cell.” Federal pardons can make it harder to prosecute former U.S. appointees locally, but such clemency does not preempt local and state prosecutions and investigations in the same way that it would federal probes.
Miller has also privately said he’s worried that Democratic members of a future federal administration may try to get creative, and hunt for ways to get around Trump’s federal clemency actions. (Trump himself, thanks to his far-right pals on the Supreme Court, enjoys an expanded protection of presidential immunity; his underlings, however, don’t enjoy the same privileges… at least not yet!) Miller has also lamented the possibility that liberals will be filing lawsuits against him for years, if not decades, and complained about how the left will try to use “lawfare” to bleed him and his wife – former Trump official and current right-wing lifestyle podcaster Katie Miller – dry financially. (The Millers have a lot of money between them, and they lead at times extravagant lives and enjoy projecting an image of being some of the nation’s top MAGA socialites. Furthermore, multiple sources who’ve dined at different homes that the Millers have resided at over the years say their food was made by a private chef.)
I doubt that’s his primary worry.
After all, polls still show James Talarico leading Ken Paxton in the Senate race, and (far more shockingly) Gina Hinajosa is in striking distance of Greg Abbott (though I think both races have moved towards Republicans as right wing money floods the state in recent weeks). Abbott’s gerrymander looks increasingly like a dummymander, as Harry Enten ranted yesterday.
And while this 41% swing in Latino support towards Dems is not entirely due to Stephen Miller’s gulag — a good deal of it is the same affordability complaint everyone else hates Trump over — his gulag is what has made the difference.
This is why, I suspect, Stephen Miller is so desperate to make the dumbass Talarico hitjob a thing.
If the GOP loses Texas — even if they lose just the Senate and some of the intended gerrymander seats — Stephen Miller will be the obvious scapegoat.
I would not want to be the Jewish guy largely responsible for losing the crown jewel of the GOP electorate if I were part of an increasingly violent fascist party.
To be fair, as Zeteo also notes in their profile, Stephen Miller is really well practiced at scapegoating others.
Two administration sources tell Zeteo that in the wake of the killings, Miller even told Trump and other senior officials that he thought Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol “commander” who became a viral jack-booted presence during Trump’s siege of Minnesota, was acting like a buffoon, and that the administration and then-DHS secretary Kristi Noem didn’t need to engage in the kinds of overtly militarized tactics that they brought to the Twin Cities. The Trump administration could instead, Miller insisted, achieve their mass deportation goals without all that smashing, beating, and shooting.
The two sources say that they and other officials aggressively eye-rolled about this behind Miller’s back, viewing his hurling of Bovino under the bus as transparent ass-covering, once Miller realized that Trump was looking for somebody to blame for the spectacular political and independent-voter backlash to the slayings. Miller had been the chief planner of Trump’s attempted domination of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He had publicly insulted the dead and labeled protesters “terrorists,” reveling in their fear and loathing. But Miller has always had a knack for self-preservation and throwing supposed friends to the wolves, if he feels he needs to do it to survive. And then he got to work at making Trump’s masked secret police, well, more secretive as they roamed America’s suburbs, cities, and rural landscapes.
It’s what fascists do best!
But as the Zeteo profile makes clear, there are a great number of people, even in the Republican Party, who loathe Stephen Miller. And then there are an increasing number of antisemites who’ve been welcomed into the fold.
I’d love if Democrats were, one day, able to hold Stephen Miller and his spouse legally and financially accountable for the crimes against humanity and deaths that they’ve caused.
But if Texas goes Blue, Democrats will likely not have that chance because the Republican Party will be right to hold Miller accountable for the party’s demise.
The post Stephen Miller Desperate to Stave Off Accountability for Losing Texas appeared first on emptywheel.