During President Donald Trump’s first three months in office, his administration has targeted dozens of former officials who criticized him or opposed his agenda.

In April 2025, Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate two men who served in his first administration, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, because they spoke out against his policies and corrected his false claims about the 2020 election that he lost.

Further, Trump revoked the security clearances for advisers and retired generals who publicly criticized him during the 2024 election campaign.

On their face, such moves appear to be a coordinated campaign of personal retribution. But as political science scholars who study the origins of elected strongmen, we believe Trump’s use of the Justice Department to attack former officials who stood up to him isn’t just about revenge. It also deters current officials from defying Trump.

More than revenge

Like all presidents, Trump needs allies who will faithfully implement his policy agenda. For most presidents, this means surrounding themselves with longtime friends.

For example, Don Evans, George W. Bush’s commerce secretary and close confidant, worked with Bush for decades before becoming a fixture in his White House.

But to carry out a power grab, incumbent leaders also need allies who will stay silent or, better yet, endorse their attempts to consolidate control.

In El Salvador, for example, President Nayib Bukele’s legislative allies gave him free rein in 2023 to run for president a second time despite constitutional provisions banning reelection.

Recall that Trump only left office in January 2021 because key Republican officials defied his attempts to overturn an election he lost.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, facing violent threats from a Trump-fueled mob, refused Trump’s request to overturn the election he lost. And Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused Trump’s entreaties to stuff the ballot boxes in Georgia with another 11,000 votes for Trump.

Notably, both men first won political office on their own, without an endorsement from Trump. This means they were less reliant on Trump for access to political power. Therefore, they were more likely to prioritize their loyalty to the Constitution over their loyalty to Trump.

Attacks enforce loyalty

In authoritarian contexts, loyalty is not an intrinsic quality. Authoritarian leaders do not necessarily select those with whom they have long work experience that leads to mutual trust.

For instance, during Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961, the head of intelligence, Johnny Abbes, was plucked from obscurity in Mexico and in 1958 began to lead the dictator’s repression machine.

Instead, the challenge for authoritarian leaders is finding people to do their bidding. And the best people for this job are those who never would have earned their position in politics without the leader’s influence.

Unqualified appointees who can’t ascend to political power based on their merits have little choice but to stick with the leader. These people appear loyal, but only because their careers are tied to the leader staying in power.

A litany of failed politicians

This logic, where people with few career prospects outside of the leader express the most loyalty, explains why Trump has appointed a number of political candidates who have lost elections.

The head of the Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, though briefly appointed as a U.S. senator from Georgia, lost her first Senate election to Raphael Warnock in 2021.

Doug Collins, Trump’s secretary of Veterans Affairs, lost to Loeffler in a Georgia Senate primary during the same election cycle.

Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, lost a 2016 primary contest for a congressional seat in a heavily Republican district in Florida.

And don’t forget Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s nominee to head a politically crucial federal judicial office. Her political career derailed 20 years ago when she came under federal investigation for “scheming to catch a cheating spouse in the act.” She lost an attorney general race in New York in 2006 to Andrew Cuomo.

Trump also picked two politicians who had failed presidential runs as Democrats – Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – to act as director of national intelligence and secretary of Health and Human Services.

For appointees who can’t win elections, the only shot at power is steadfast alignment with the leader. This dynamic, in turn, provides a strong incentive for these officials to remain loyal, even when the leader breaks the law or orders them to do the same.

When leaders place loyalists in charge of federal law enforcement, attempts to conjure votes for the president out of thin air or to seize ballot boxes in opposition districts are more likely to succeed.

The Trump administration’s attacks on former Republican officials who criticized him, such as Taylor and Krebs, reinforces this dynamic. It sends a signal of future punishment to current Justice Department officials should they speak out against Trump or refuse to carry out illegal orders.

Attacks also target opposition power

Of course, the Trump administration’s political attacks haven’t stopped with officials in his previous administration who have fallen out of favor.

They have expanded to include independent institutions such as universities, not-for-profit media and law firms.

As research on authoritarian regimes shows, the goal of attacking independent institutions this way is to sap their capacity to resist the incumbent government’s attempts to cheat in future elections.

After Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, had rewritten his country’s Constitution and reined in the courts, he changed the electoral rules to ensure he won reelection in 2022. Along the way, Orban forced an entire university into exile after failing to subdue it.

In these ways, incumbents’ acts of retribution toward people and organizations that oppose their agenda reinforce loyalty among their allies. They also undermine and weaken their opponents and ultimately facilitate incumbents’ efforts to consolidate power.

Joe Wright has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and private foundations.

Erica Frantz has received funding from the US Agency for International Development and private foundations.