Trump Planning Revenge on Bruce Ohr Just Because He Can

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

From the Washington Post:

BREAKING NEWS: Trump says he plans to revoke security clearance for Justice Department official Bruce Ohr “very quickly”

Bruce Ohr used to be an associate deputy attorney general and presumably still has a job at that level—although DOJ refuses to say exactly what he does. It’s likely that he can’t operate without security clearance, which means that Trump is basically firing him from his current job. Maybe demoting him too, since I’m not sure anyone at that level can operate without security clearance.

Trump clearly has no excuse for this except for his threadbare theories about the involvement of Ohr and his “beautiful wife” in the FBI’s Russia investigation. Ohr was in occasional contact with Christopher Steele of “Steele dossier” fame during 2016 and 2017, thanks to the fact that he already knew Steele because they had both worked on organized crime issues. Beyond that, it’s not clear that he did much of anything since the FBI was aware of the Steele dossier well before Steele ever mentioned it to Ohr.

But it doesn’t matter. Trump is obsessed with him and considers him an enemy to be retaliated against. Will any Republican complain about this?¹ Or will they just shrug as usual? I guess my money is on shrug as usual.

That is, any Republican actually running for office in November.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate