Ex-Trump administration official Miles Taylor warns that the former president's behavior regarding the mishandling of classified documents is part of a larger narrative of wrongdoing.
Taylor previously worked in the George W. Bush administration prior to being recruited by former U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary (DHS) Secretary and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly into the Trump administration. Taylor served as DHS chief of staff between 2017 and 2019.
In 2018, Taylor excoriated Trump in an, at the time, anonymous essay titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration" which was published in The New York Times. Taylor then wrote a book, A Warning, which was also published anonymously. About one year later, he revealed himself as the author of both works.
Taylor told MeidasTouch Podcast host and co-founder Ben Meiselas on Monday that he routinely saw Trump mishandle classified documents. He recalled receiving a call one morning from a DHS official early on in the administration.
It was related to the meeting between Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on May 10, 2017. It became highly publicized and caused concerns about providing potential top-secret information "not just to civilians and tourists but to an adversary," as Taylor described.
"People still don't understand the extreme sensitivity of what Trump had shared, but it didn't stop there because after that we became really concerned about what to share with Donald Trump and when because we had no confidence that he would protect highly classified information that we put in front of him because he had a proclivity to talk about those things," Taylor said on the podcast.
In June, Trump was indicted on 37 counts stemming from classified documents discovered by federal authorities at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Trump, who was previously indicted in Manhattan for alleged hush money payments prior to the 2016 election, has denied wrongdoing in all legal matters.
"Miles Taylor is a sack of s***," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek via email. "His book either belongs in the discount bin of the fiction section or should be repurposed as toilet paper."
Taylor, whose newly released book Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump warns the American public about electing "the next Trump," said he recalled another instance when he was speaking to former National Security Advisor John Bolton at the White House.
Former White House press secretary and current Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders reportedly entered the office, informing the pair that Trump "carelessly picked up a fistful of classified documents" at his disposal to show to reporters in the Oval Office, according to Taylor.
Bolton, like Taylor, has also been vocal about Trump's behavior regarding classified documents.
"It's very important, obviously, to give the president all the information he needs to make a decision," Bolton said on CNN prior to Trump's arraignment in Miami last month. "Unfortunately, Trump didn't pay too much attention to a lot of what he was given.
"But he paid enough attention to it to have a constant fixation on trying to hold on to documents."
Bolton has posted similar thoughts on social media, including using Trump's own 2016 campaign statements about protecting classified information against him. Trump has been encouraged repeatedly by Bolton to drop out of the 2024 presidential race due to "criminal acts" and being "clearly unfit to lead."
Taylor confirmed on the podcast that Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team has not reached out to him personally, adding that he hopes they are building out a longer narrative with historical context of alleged document mishandling.
Taylor offered to contribute towards their investigation. The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago were "by no means some accident or a brief lapse," he added.
Newsweek reached out to Taylor via email and social media for comment.
