[homoe]

Trump wants to prosecute Miles Taylor and New York Times; Taylor says president wants to lock up critics
Kicking off his campaign day Thursday, Trump again called on authorities to prosecute political opponents – this time the once-anonymous aide Miles Taylor, who criticized him in a high-profile New York Times column and subsequent book.

There "should be major criminal liability for such scum like that," Trump said of Taylor during a campaign rally in Tampa, Fla.

"Are you listening to me back in Washington?" Trump added. "He should be prosecuted."

Taylor, who on Wednesday disclosed he is the anti-Trump writer known as Anonymous, responded on Twitter that Trump is trying to use the legal system to punish and silence opponents.

"The state of open dissent in America: the President derides critics as 'traitors' and 'treasonous'; threatens to 'prosecute' & 'lock them up'; and ominously warns 'bad things' will happen to them," Taylor said. "Is this who we are?"

In the 2018 column and a 2019 book called "A Warning," Taylor said that Trump routinely urged aides to take illegal actions and suggested that the president might refuse to leave office, even if he is defeated for re-election.

“He will not exit quietly – or easily,” Anonymous wrote in "A Warning."

Taylor worked for Trump as an official in the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump also called for prosecution of The New York Times, never mind the First Amendment protections for newspapers (and critics).