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Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day.

I'm Harry Littman.

We continue with our series of subject-specific episodes designed to analyze and prepare for

the assaults on democracy that are on the horizon with Trump's second term.

Our focus today is national security,

Trump's instincts to reshape that area into a personal instrument of loyalty to him pose profound risks to the safety of Americans and the global order.

We got a mild preview of the damage Trump may wreak in his first term when he routinely abused virtually all the rules, laws,

and norms that govern national security, culminating, of course, in an orgy of violations as

he left the White House with hundreds of proloin classified documents.

That blatant misconduct led to an open-and open and shut case, one that Judge Eileen Cannon

and the American electorate allowed him to sidestep. Now he's back and seemingly even more

cavalier. Most ominously, he's proposing to install Cash Patel as director of the FBI.

Recall that when Trump tried to make Patel deputy director for his time around,

then Attorney General Bill Barr said,

Over my dead body.

And if Trump is able to install Patel as director, Patel has assembled his own list of so-called

deep state enemies he intends to target, names like Kamala Harris, Robert Mueller, and Merrick

Garland.

...