Kate Brannen Profile picture
Aug 7, 2019 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Trump and his supporters have routinely plucked government workers from obscurity and targeted them online, usually for just doing their jobs.

Think: Nellie and Bruce Ohr nytimes.com/2018/08/17/us/…
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page: thedailybeast.com/trump-attacks-…
He's attacked countless reporters by name, singling them out on Twitter and at rallies.
There was a stretch where civil servants on the National Security Council were worried they would be doxed: foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/10/tru…
I don't remember any Republicans objecting. If anything, they've joined in when it serves their political purposes.

So, spare me the pearl-clutching when it comes to Joaquin Castro publishing public info on Trump's big donors in his district.
"I’ve been getting hate mail for almost a year now," the owner of the restaurant wrote in May. washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-own…
More to the point: Why do Republican lawmakers never criticize Trump publicly but happy to do so in private?

Because they are worried he will tweet about them and they (and their families) will have to face an onslaught of harassment.
I better stop because I could come up with examples all night.

How about when he vaguely threatened Michael Cohen's father? vox.com/2019/1/23/1819…

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More from @K8brannen

Mar 1, 2022
The Biden admin has been instrumental in creating a unified front against Putin.

So why didn't Putin try this when Trump was in the WH and no such effort would have been made by the US? washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/…
I know there are good answers to this question and yet, I can't quite shake wondering about it.
I think part of the answer is Putin miscalculated and didn't extract as much as he could out of Trump's presidency, perhaps expecting there would be a 2nd term.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 1, 2021
This reminds me of when the U.S. Army decided it needed to have a presence on Second Life.
I covered the effort for @insidedefense.

To do so, I had to create an avatar and then meet up with TRADOC and press officer avatars in a virtual conference room where I was shown a Power Point presentation. jstor.org/stable/2482786…
At one point, I got lost on the Army island and just wandered aimlessly on a virtual mountaintop.

Eventually the Army folks found me and helped me get back to headquarters.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 23, 2021
This puts Pentagon charts to shame: cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_…
Fascinating intvu btw @cwarzel & @swodinsky about covering the adtech beat.

Reminds me of covering the defense industry.

"A lot of this stuff is like, purposefully dense and dull. And the most interesting stuff is always the most impenetrable shit." warzel.substack.com/p/the-internet…
"I was looking into a story about Palantir and I found out they were easily able to sell their insights tech to the federal government using flashy campaigns and sales pitches. But they couldn’t really sell themselves to marketers..."
Read 4 tweets
May 12, 2021
Some thoughts about former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller's prepared testimony for this morning's @OversightDems hearing.
assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2070…
First, Miller says on Jan. 3 & 4, he convened Cabinet-level calls to prepare and coordinate for Jan. 6.

As Miller himself says, this is NOT a job for the secretary of defense.

Where was National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien?
In Miller's own words:

"It is not in the best interests of the citizens of the United States, our Armed Forces or our constitutional form of
government for the Department of Defense to take a lead role in organizing a domestic law enforcement response."
Read 19 tweets
May 5, 2021
"However, it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose an ‘indefinite’ suspension."
oversightboard.com/news/226612455…
The headline doesn't exactly match the ruling ...
"It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored."
Read 4 tweets
Mar 4, 2021
In 2017, the Trump administration halted the practice of routinely publishing the number of US troops deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
In April, @just_security filed FOIA requests with DoD seeking these numbers. theguardian.com/us-news/2020/a…
When that didn't work, @just_security sued the US government in October. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/1…
Read 6 tweets

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