President Donald Trump has ordered new investigations into two high-profile figures from his first term in office—one being the former top federal cybersecurity official, and the other, the anonymous leaker who authored the now-infamous 2018 New York Times op-ed and subsequent anti-Trump book while serving inside the administration.
According to senior administration officials, President Trump signed a directive authorizing separate Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security probes into possible criminal misconduct and breaches of national security during his first term. The move marks a renewed effort by the Trump White House to expose what it views as a coordinated effort within the federal bureaucracy to sabotage his presidency from the inside.
The first target of the renewed investigations is Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), who was fired by Trump in late 2020 after publicly disputing the integrity of the presidential election. Krebs had claimed the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” a statement Trump vehemently rejected at the time.
Krebs is now facing scrutiny over possible misuse of federal authority, improper relationships with partisan outside actors, and what one senior source described as “a politicized handling of cybersecurity infrastructure that blurred the line between fact and narrative.”
The second and perhaps more explosive target is the unnamed leaker behind the anonymous New York Times op-ed published in 2018, which was followed by a bestselling book criticizing the President and admitting to covertly working against Trump’s agenda from within the administration. The author—who was later revealed to be former DHS official Miles Taylor—claimed to be part of a so-called “resistance” inside the government.
Trump officials are now investigating whether Taylor violated any federal employment or security disclosure laws while promoting the book or coordinating its rollout with media and political operatives.
One senior aide close to the matter said, “We are looking into whether classified or privileged materials were used, whether Taylor misled Congress or his superiors, and whether he coordinated with any outside groups to undermine U.S. government policy from within. This isn’t about speech—it’s about betrayal.”
Critics of the administration are already calling the probes politically motivated. But Trump allies argue that the American people deserve accountability for what they describe as blatant sabotage and dishonesty from unelected bureaucrats who operated under the protection of anonymity.
“Imagine if a military officer boasted about secretly undermining orders from the Commander-in-Chief—that’s what happened here, and it cannot go unpunished,” said one Trump adviser.
The investigations are expected to span multiple agencies, with coordination between DOJ, DHS, and relevant congressional oversight committees. If criminal conduct is found, prosecutions could follow.
President Trump has long vowed to clean out what he calls the “deep state,” and this latest move signals that his second term won’t just be about policy—but about exposing and prosecuting those who tried to thwart it from the shadows.