Trump has made threats against some 100 enemies, according to a diligent NPR catalog, and thrown around phrases like “enemy from within.” Some of his allies have been even more explicit about using the Department of Justice to attack political foes. Republicans have also at times said those threats were mere jokes or hyperbole. The president-elect appears at the moment to be in a forgiving mood, suggesting the Republican Party should help the Democratic presidential campaign pay off its debt.
Progressive leaders are split on the seriousness of the short-term legal threat. Some are skeptical that Trump would use the federal apparatus to attack Democratic donors and progressive nonprofits that veer toward electoral politics — in part because a move like that would also alarm Republican donors and non-profits.
Others are closer to outright panic. Hoffman’s former chief political aide, Dimitri Mehlhorn, after the election declared the “Second American Republic…over” and wrote that he would be “joining what I call the Archipelago of Light” which he described as a “global civilization” stretching from “Finland to Costa Rica.”
Hoffman, among the Democratic Party’s topmost donors this cycle, said on a podcast after the election that “There were a number of folks I talked to who were like, ’Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail is extreme because that’s the way he gets his news and attention. It isn’t really going to be the way he’s going to govern… It isn’t going to be retribution to so-called enemies within.”
“Obviously, I feared and still fear they were wrong, but now I’m hoping they are right,” he said.
A Trump adviser responded that Hoffman is “trying to scare people into handing over even more money to his liberal political groups.”
The Mellon and JPB Foundations, and Hoffman, didn’t respond to inquiries Saturday.
– Kadia Goba and Reed Albergotti contributed to this article.
