Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s allies at the agency are now working with failed Never Trump leaders to elect Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Elizabeth Neumann, who was given extensive power over policy and decisions while working at DHS with Nielsen, is joining fellow former DHS staffer Miles Taylor — also an ally of Nielsen’s — to help elect Biden by forming the group Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR), according to Politico.
In May 2019, Breitbart News named a series of DHS officials who had worked for or were still in their roles at the agency. Taylor and Neumann, sources said at the time, were prominent opponents of President Donald Trump elevated to power by Nielsen.
Neumann, sources told Breitbart News, had been given so much power at DHS under Nielsen’s direction that she was vital in slowing down the president’s immigration agenda. Some plans for the issue, set by the 2016 transition team, were thrown out altogether, sources said.
Also named in the report was Chad Wolf, the agency’s current acting DHS secretary whom Trump has nominated to be the official head. Then, sources described Wolf as an avid opponent of the president’s agenda but was able to secure a role as Nielsen’s chief of staff.
Taylor and Neumann’s anti-Trump group — which is funded by Never Trump’s Bill Kristol, Sarah Longwell, and Tim Miller — also includes two senior administration officials who currently work for Trump, according to Politico. One of those officials is set to reveal their identity in the coming weeks.
The group is looking to get other former Trump administration officials to sign onto their efforts to defeat the president in the upcoming election.
Taylor and Neumann’s public rebukes of Trump are not isolated cases for former DHS officials.
Days before resigning, former Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan gave an interview where he attacked Trump’s policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. McAleenan claimed the president’s Zero Tolerance policy “went too far” and repudiated the term “illegal alien.”
McAleenan had also been accused of leaking the details of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids to the establishment media in order to stop the operation. About a month after his announced resignation, a report alleged that McAleenan had led a quiet front inside DHS to stoke opposition to Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
In July, former Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke admitted to the New York Times that she purposefully weakened the White House’s memo to end President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to ensure the effort would fail under judicial scrutiny.
“Ms. Duke said she did not include policy reasons in the memo because she did not agree with the ideas being pushed by Mr. Miller and Mr. Sessions: that DACA amounted to an undeserved amnesty and that it would encourage new waves of illegal immigration,” the Times reported.
Duke’s refusal to include specific policy reasons for ending DACA was vital to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that demanded the Trump administration refile paperwork to end the program.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.