In her campaign stump speeches, Vice President Kamala Harris has contrasted herself with former President Donald Trump by saying she's going to enter the White House with a "to-do list," while her opponent would begin his administration with an "enemies list." One far-right activist adjacent to Trump's inner circle recently created such a list.
The Atlantic reported that Ivan Raiklin, who is a retired Army Green Beret and self-described "constitutional lawyer," recently sat down with insurrectionist cattle rancher Cliven Bundy (famous for instigating an armed standoff with federal authorities in 2014). He called himself Trump's "secretary of retribution," and said he had come up with a "deep-state target list" of roughly 300 people for the former president to persecute first should he be elected to a second term next week.
According to the Atlantic, Raiklin recalled to Bundy how the Department of Defense initially mandated that all members of the military get vaccinated for Covid-19. However, the mandate was later rescinded after thousands of service members refused the shot. Raiklin said the mandate was the precursor to the "total destruction of our constitutional order." The Atlantic's Shane Harris wrote that all members of the military are routinely required to get up-to-date vaccines for polio, influenza and typhoid, among other diseases.
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"There must be consequences," Raiklin said, in reference to the "unlawful, immoral, unethical, illegal" mandate, which he baselessly claimed was responsible for the deaths of "lots of people."
Raiklin's list includes current and former members of Congress, journalists and other government officials he says are deserving of "lawful justice." Some people on the color-coded list are also family members of those individuals. Harris wrote that Raiklin's list "reads like a greatest hits of all the supposedly corrupt plotters who Trump and his supporters allege have targeted them."
"Among others, it includes FBI officials who worked on the investigation into potential links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia; lawmakers and congressional staff who managed both Trump impeachments; members of the Capitol Police who defended Congress from pro-Trump rioters on January 6, 2021; witnesses who later testified to Congress about the attack; and the senior public-health officials who led the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic," Harris wrote.
"As if to demonstrate that even the closest of Trump’s allies can still be in league with the forces of government treachery, the former president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who helped speed development of the COVID vaccine as a member of Operation Warp Speed, also made Raiklin’s list," he continued.
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While Raiklin has no official ties to Trump or his campaign, he's a board member of America's Future, which is headed by disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Even though Flynn served in that position for less than a month, Trump has promised to bring him back into the fold if he wins reelection.
Since leaving the Trump administration, Flynn has become a prolific spreader of far-right conspiracy theories. This includes baseless claims that the 2020 election was supposedly stolen from Trump. Flynn even called for martial law in the aftermath of the 2020 election after President Joe Biden was declared the winner. CNN recently reported that Flynn has co-founded a nonprofit that raised more than $21 million from "unknown donors" since 2021.
"Not only have [Trump and his allies] managed to convince large swaths of the country that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump — they've made a business out of it. No one has cashed in quite like Flynn," CNN wrote.
Click here to read the Atlantic's report in its entirety (subscription required).
