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WASHINGTON — Fear is spreading among some who’ve run afoul of President Donald Trump. A foreboding that grew out of Trump’s election victory last November has deepened, several people told NBC News, after the Justice Department secured indictments against two public figures who’ve long been in his crosshairs: New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. Some said they worry that the Trump administration will target them for prosecution, draining their life savings and potentially landing them in jail. In a time of heightened political violence, others said they fear that the president’s most zealous followers may try to do them harm. Miles Taylor is bracing for both eventualities. He served as a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security in Trump’s first term and wrote two books that disparaged the president. In April, Trump signed an executive memorandum calling Taylor an "egregious leaker and disseminator of falsehoods." Trump stripped him of his security clearance and directed agencies to review his conduct as a government employee. Within days of that memo, Taylor said he got a threat from a person living in the South. More recently, he said his wife received a message warning that she'd be forced to watch while a firing squad executed her husband. He described arriving home and seeing his wife "in tears and shaking" after she received the death threat. He said that he has sent multiple notifications to state and federal authorities about stalkers and has taken out restraining orders against those who've made threats. "You don't know if that person is down the street who wants you in a firing squad or if it's a keyboard warrior who just wants to upset you," he said. "It really rocks you and your family members to get those messages." Still, he said he plans to fight any legal charges that may come his way. And he continues to make televised appearances where he is critical of Trump's actions. "I haven't threatened anyone with violence," he said. "I haven't committed any crimes. I've expressed a very strong political opinion about the president of the United States, and the consequences have been the destruction of our personal and professional lives." As Trump publicly calls for punishing his perceived foes, NBC News reached out to more than 30 Trump critics, Democratic officials and activists, and others who have drawn his ire. Several Trump detractors, including some who normally speak publicly, declined to talk so as not to risk reprisals. A former government official said they’ve worked to minimize public records that reveal their home address to make it tougher for people to "dox" them — find or publish personal information, like their whereabouts — so no one shows up at their door with bad intentions. Asked about concerns that the Trump administration might be acting in a retaliatory fashion, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement: "The Trump administration will continue to deliver the truth to the American people and restore integrity to our justice system. It is the ultimate hypocrisy to accuse President Trump of what Joe Biden actively did throughout his presidency: engaging in lawfare against his political opponents. The indictment against Comey, by a grand jury, speaks for itself, and the Trump Administration looks forward to fair proceedings in the courts." The rule of law is something that each side says the other has abused. Trump has argued that the prosecutions he faced after he left office in 2021 stemmed from a weaponized judicial system. "Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents — something I know something about," Trump said in his inaugural address on Jan. 20. "We will not allow that to happen." If that was his intent, he's not corrected a wrong so much as perpetuated it, some legal experts and former officials said. They see Trump presiding over a departure from post-Watergate norms that were meant to shield the Justice Department from White House meddling. On Sept. 20, Trump posted a message — which an official said wasintended to be private — that called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute three of his perceived foes: Comey, James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Five days later, Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump personal attorney who’d been installed as acting U.S. attorney for Virginia’s eastern district, sought and won a grand jury indictment of Comey. Twenty days later, Halligan sought and attained an indictment of James. "I have never seen this before," said Mary McCord, a former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department. "In 23 years at the Department of Justice, I never got any interference or a hint or insinuation that something should be done because the president wanted it. It never happened," she added. Olivia Troye is another vocal critic. She was a homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence in Trump’s first term, and she departed and publicly broke with Trump in 2020 over his handling of the Covid pandemic. She has fallen into disfavor in Trump-world. When Troye left the administration, Pence described her as a "disgruntled" employee. She spoke at the Democratic National Convention last year on behalf of the party's presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. After Trump’s victory, Troye warned about the "chauvinistic, male-dominated" team that Trump was assembling for the new term. In response, Karoline Leavitt, then a transition spokeswoman and now the White House press secretary, said that it's "beyond time for Olivia Troye to go back to doing whatever the hell she was doing before she threw her integrity in the toilet to get her face on liberal television because she clearly has no idea what she’s talking about." When FBI agents searched John Bolton’s home in a classified records probe that began during the Biden administration, neighbors and friends approached Troye and voiced concerns that she might meet a similar fate. With an elderly mother at home, Troye said she worries that an unannounced search of her home could create a health crisis for her mother. (Bolton, Trump's national security adviser in his first term, was indicted last week). Troye fears vengeance from the Trump administration to the degree that, after the ’24 election, she said she opened discussions with a foreign government about leaving the U.S. She said she has resumed those talks of late. "It's hard to figure out what the right thing is," she said. "And the other thing is, I haven't done anything wrong." Schiff appears to be in limbo. Bondi appointed a "special attorney" earlier this year to look into mortgage fraud allegations against Schiff, according to two administration officials. Back when he served in the House, Schiff was the lead manager in Trump's first impeachment trial. Trump posted a note on Truth Social this month calling those impeachment proceedings "corrupt." He singled out Schiff and wrote that he hoped the "necessary authorities, including CONGRESS, are looking into this!" Schiff's office declined a request for an interview. An aide pointed instead to Schiff's response on social media: "The government has been shut down for nearly half a month. Insurance costs are doubling for millions of families. And you're still trying to rewrite history on the first bipartisan vote to impeach a U.S. president?" Those who are only peripherally involved in partisan politics also worry about becoming targets. Some Democrats are now scared to donate, according to a party fundraising official and a U.S. senator. "There's a lot of donors who are on the sidelines today because they fear either economic or criminal targeting from the president," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. "If you think that you’re going to land in jail because you donate money to Democrats, why wouldn’t that cause you to think twice?" he added. Chris Korge, the Democratic National Committee’s finance chair who has spent decades working on presidential campaigns, said that even raising money for Biden’s presidential library has become more of a challenge in Trump’s second go-round. NBC News reported in September that some major Biden donors have declined to support the library effort, citing several reasons, including a preference for focusing on the party’s future rather than its past, anger at Biden’s inner circle and fear of retribution from the White House’s current occupant. "It is unequivocally a fact that we would be raising more money with major donors with the DNC today than we are because of the intimidation factor that Donald Trump has caused," Korge said in an interview. "I have talked to a lot of major donors that do not want to take a risk that Donald Trump will go after them if they contribute … if they give a $1 million check. They would have done it but for Donald Trump." Anxiety isn't limited to isolated individuals. A wide array of non-profit groups were rattled by an executive memo Trump signed after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, contending that violent conduct springs in part from "hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality." Fearing they could be singled out, charitable organizations are banding together — forming a kind of “NATO for nonprofits” — to protect themselves from government attempts to disrupt their work. "What the president is doing is trying to punish people and entities that disagree with his policies or are trying to hold his administration accountable to the law. It’s fundamentally un-American and violates the core American right of free speech," said Vanita Gupta, a former senior Justice Department official in the Biden and Obama administrations who is helping lead the effort to protect nonprofit groups. For others, the fear is more personal. They are anxious about Trump, but also about potential vigilantism that might happen in his name. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., was a House manager for Trump’s second impeachment trial. An acerbic critic of Trump, Swalwell has gotten multiple threatening messages from people objecting to his political stance. In two cases this year, U.S. attorneys have declined to bring charges against people who threatened to kill him, a staff member in Swalwell's office said. With three young children at home, he said, "we really limit allowing our kids to be in the front yard. We try and limit their exposure to all this." Earlier this year, Swalwell posted a threatening voice mail message that came to his office. "You know there's illegal aliens in your area that will cut your f------ throat for a $20 bill," the caller said. "I'm going to start handing out pictures of you with instructions. ... Your time is limited. If you do have children you might want to kiss them goodbye." "Do you prefer the type of blade they use on your throat, huh? Do you? Or would you rather be strangled with a garrote? It's your choice," the caller said. Swalwell's office reported the call to U.S. Capitol Police, the staff member said, adding that the congressman’s office does not know how authorities are handling it. In reply to an NBC News inquiry this week, the Capitol Police public information office sent an automated note saying the office was closed due to the government shutdown. Swalwell said he has spoken personally to Bondi about threats he’s gotten. Last week, federal authorities charged a 69-year-old California man with sending a threatening letter to Benny Johnson, a conservative influencer. "Maybe someone will blow your head off!!! We can hope!" the man accused of sending the letter allegedly wrote. Johnson appeared alongside Bondi at a news conference announcing the charges. Asked about that case, Swalwell said, "I have had multiple threats that were more explicit and specific than what were made to Benny Johnson that DOJ recently declined to prosecute." A Justice Department spokesman didn't respond to a request for public comment about the threats made to Swalwell. A certain camaraderie has developed among those waiting to see whether the nightmare scenario comes to pass. Troye said someone who also worked in the Trump administration confided their dread of facing government accusers alone. "It broke my heart," Troye said. "I'm like, 'If they come for you, I’ll be there raising hell.'"
