Revenge tour? Trump campaign threats raise questions of retribution-focused presidency

Seizing on Donald Trump's incendiary comments about his political opponents, Democrats spent months warning he would come into office with an "enemies list" and execute a campaign of revenge unparalleled in modern politics.

Voters shrugged and elected Trump anyway, and his allies say concerns about retribution were overblown. Trump likes to talk tough and often doesn't follow through ? it's all theatrics, they argue, pointing to chants of "lock her up" during the 2016 campaign that were aimed at Hillary Clinton. But no prosecution came to be.

Trump is known for being vengeful. He has hounded those who crossed him politically out of office, campaigning relentlessly against Republicans who voted for his two impeachments. And he has meddled in the legal system before, firing FBI Director James Comey over how the agency was handling an investigation into alleged collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia.

He also fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who drew Trump's ire after recusing himself from the Russia inquiry, and his Justice Department allegedly pushed for a criminal investigation into former Secretary of State John Kerry after the two clashed over the Iran nuclear deal.

Now the question is whether Trump's campaign threats are bluster or the precursor to rocky period of score settling.

Will a Trump emboldened by a sweeping victory and a recent Supreme Court decision offering broad immunity for a president’s actions in office make good on threats against his opponents? Is it payback time?

Trump talked on the campaign trail about legal actions against everyone from President Joe Biden to Vice President Kamala Harris, former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He railed against perceived “enemies from within.” He threatened opponents with prosecution, drawing comparisons to authoritarian regimes and sparking grave concerns about the nation’s democratic underpinnings.

Trump shared a social media message saying Cheney is "guilty of treason," a charge he also levied against the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

“This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump wrote on social media about Milley.

During during a Pennsylvania rally Trump said Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted” over her handling of the immigration issue.

More: Trump vows to go after his enemies if elected. Meet two enforcers ready to carry that out

Yet those close to Trump are playing down the retribution talk, with many pointing to the Clinton example as a sign that campaign rhetoric doesn't mean legal action. They echo Trump in saying the greatest retribution will be a successful presidency with a booming economy.

“He never did it before, I don’t think he’s going to consume himself with it," said a Republican consultant close to the Trump campaign, adding that “He knows how history books are written . . . he knows if he comes in and inflation chills out, the world chills out . . . the final chapter on him could have a lot of balance to it . . . so I don’t buy it.”

Some longtime Trump observers are skeptical.

“The idea that Donald Trump is going to come into this as Mary Poppins after having been Godzilla on the campaign trail is just a vast misreading of who he is,” said Trump biographer Tim O’Brien.

Just as Trump often offered conflicting statements throughout the campaign, saying one day that Biden and his family should face a special prosecutor and another that “my revenge will be success,” some allies suggest prosecutions could be warranted while at the same time throwing cold water on the idea of a broadly retribution-focused presidency.

“If he didn’t do it in his first term, why would he do it in his second term?” longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone said Tuesday at the incoming president's election night party in West Palm Beach. “Now, that said, those who broke the law, as they tell us endlessly, should be prosecuted.”

Conservative Political Action Conference Chair Matt Schlapp believes the federal bureaucracy will try to handicap Trump’s presidency and he must be “ready to fight.”

“What we have to be ready to do is to prosecute or at least discipline all these swamp creatures who are trying to undermine the rightfully elected president,” Schlapp said.

Even those who don’t think Trump will seek indictments against his opponents believe there could be a purge at the Justice Department, which brought criminal charges against the now president-elect over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents. Trump has pledged to fire the special counsel, Jack Smith, who is handling both cases.

“Revenge means to me that half the DOJ will be fired. I don’t think revenge means people will be thrown in jail,” said former Trump aide turned critic Sam Nunberg.

Trump often claims the DOJ was politicized and engaged in “lawfare” against him, despite no evidence Biden interfered in any of his cases and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s insistence that the agency acted independently.

A shake up at the DOJ could threaten the agency’s independence and make it subject to the whims of the president, giving him vast powers to go after perceived enemies.

“I think you'll see some real mischief at the Justice Department,” said Ty Cobb, an attorney in Trump’s White House and now a critic of the former president, who predicted “loyalty tests” for leading DOJ figures.

O’Brien described Trump’s campaign as a “revenge tour” for a man who believes he was stripped of the presidency unfairly in 2020. An aggrieved Trump with few guardrails in a second administration will be dangerous, O’Brien said.

“I think he's going to visit an authoritarian approach on the U.S. public that no one in the modern era is used to or has seen,” O’Brien said. “And the consequences, I think, are going to be startling and grave.”

Harris focused on Trump's campaign threats in her closing message, saying she would come into office with a "to-do list" while her opponent has an "enemies list." That wasn't enough to stop him from rolling to victory, and Trump allies say it doesn't ring true.

"It’s not going to be about retribution," said Stone, who was pardoned by Trump after being convicted of obstructing the congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and making false statements. "I think he understands the way he ultimately gets the greatest possible '(expletive) you' is to turn the country around and be the most popular president in American history. I don’t think he’s interested in personal revenge, that’s not his motive here, it never was.”

Marc Short, who served as former Trump Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said Trump’s language on the campaign trail was “unfortunate.”

“I think as conservatives one of our foundational principles is believing in the rule of law,” said Short. “We would often critique left wing dictatorships for pursuing their political enemies, so I hope that would not be the case.”

While noting that Trump never prosecuted Clinton after pledging to in 2016, Short said it’s reasonable to ask whether he will follow through this time after a campaign chock full of threats.

“It’s a fair question because I think the rhetoric has been more heated this time,” Short said.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump talked about retribution. Will he deliver as president?