The New York Times embraced and promoted a lie with this story, giving comfort to an administration that is right now purging our government of inconvenient nonpartisan civil servants and fostering a cult of personal loyalty.
Here the subheadline suggests in metaphor that the president’s proposed persecution of Alexander Vindman for testifying under congressional subpoena is just. 
The story itself makes clear that the authors are purporting to report from inside the president’s head in characterizing things this way.
But the story has so internalized Trump’s point of view that it starts analyzing a “war” that isn’t real. Any close observer of the administration these past 3y surely knows that individual acts of defiance to Trump are sporadic, uncoordinated, and reliably get brutally crushed.
From Alex Vindman to Walt Schaub to Reality Winner to Natalie Edwards to the remnants of the Mueller team to Jennifer Williams etc, we are not watching a war but the systematic punishment of individual officials who stuck to the truth and kept faith with the public they work for.
All took their stands either on their own or, in the case of the prosecutors, as part of a small close knit group. The prosecutors might be outraged to be mentioned in the same breath with people who illegally leaked docs, but that’s the point: Their efforts are uncoordinated.
