Former Trump security official says Republican party a bigger threat to US than ISIS

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy continuing 'to pay home to a twice-impeached presidential loser' says former homeland chief of staff Miles Taylor

Miles Taylor, a senior staffer in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, has described the former president’s ongoing influence over the GOP as the country’s “No. 1 national security threat”.

Mr Taylor served as chief of staff to the Secretary of Homeland Security from 2017 until 2019. After leaving his role, he outed himself as the anonymous author of a 2018 New York Times op-ed which revealed how he and his like-minded colleagues were working to thwart Mr Trump’s worst impulses as commander-in-chief.

The former official told MSNBC this week that although only “a national security guy”, he was forced to blow the whistle on the Trump administration because of his concerns for national security.

Mr Taylor went on to say that leading figures in the GOP, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, were continuing “to pay homage to a twice-impeached presidential loser”.

"[It] should give all Americans pause and make them worry about the future of this country and national security,” he said.

"I've worked in national security against ISIS, al Qaeda and Russia and the No. 1 national security threat I've ever seen in my life to this country's democracy is the party that I'm in: the Republican Party.”

In a separate interview with the network, Mr Taylor attacked his colleagues and the GOP for their continued silence in the wake of news that two men had been arrested over a plot to blow-up Democrat Party headquarters in Sacramento and the first prison sentences for January 6 Capitol rioters.

Mr Taylor said that it was “disgusting” that former cabinet secretaries had not come forward on Mr Trump after they “told me behind the scenes that they felt like I did, that Trump was a threat to the fabric of our republic”.

He added: “They still have an obligation to speak out, and I think it’s morally disgusting that a lot of these people haven’t.

“I had heard him [Trump] talking in person about using his authorities in a way that was extra-judicial. For instance he talked about things in the Oval Office including martial law, and he talked explicitly about his falsification with the insurrection act”.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 was referred to by Mr Trump and the far-right as a way of holding on to to power in his final days in office in January with military law, and ahead of the rioting on the Capitol on 6 January, in which five were killed.