WASHINGTON – White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said the administration’s charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James could be “retaliation” and that “if there is an opportunity” to retaliate against President Donald Trump, “she would retaliate,” Vanity Fair reported in a new profile of the chief of staff.
Vanity Fair published a two-part profile of the chief of staff on Tuesday, based on an extensive series of 11 interviews with Wiles over the course of a year. Mr. Wiles, who grants few public interviews and generally avoids the spotlight, provided rare insight into the thinking of one of the most powerful people in the White House.
Asked to comment on Wiles’ comments in the profile, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said Wiles “helped President Trump achieve the most successful first 11 months of any president in American history.”
“President Trump has never had a greater and more loyal advisor than Susie,” Levitt said in a statement. “The entire government is grateful for her steady leadership and is fully united behind her.”
In a post to
“Important context was ignored and much of what I and others said about the team and the president was left out of the story,” she said. “After reading it, I believe this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic negative narrative about the president and our team.”
The Justice Department reached out for comment and pointed to Wiles’ post and the White House’s response.
In a March interview with the paper that was published as part of Tuesday’s profile, the reporter asked Wiles if he had ever told Trump that “this is not a retaliatory visit,” referring to the administration’s earlier actions against people who have been Trump’s enemies.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “There is broad agreement that scores will be resolved before the end of the first 90 days.”
Asked in August about the end of the Retribution Tour after 90 days, Wiles told the magazine: “I don’t think he’s on a Retribution Tour. His basic principle is, ‘I don’t want what happened to me to happen to other people.'” Therefore, people who have done bad things need to be removed from government. In some cases, it may look like retaliation. And sometimes there may be elements like that. Who could blame him? Not me. ”
The Trump administration sought to indict James and former FBI Director James Comey, a Trump critic who had been increasingly investigating the president, but Comey had initially investigated possible links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, and James had secured a civil fraud judgment of more than $500 million against Trump and his family business, which was overturned on appeal last summer.
But last month, a federal judge dismissed charges against James, who was charged with mortgage fraud, and Comey, who was charged with charges related to his 2020 congressional testimony, after the judge found that the prosecutors who pursued both cases were illegally appointed.
Then, after the first case was dismissed, prosecutors may try to indict James again, although the Justice Department made continued and unsuccessful attempts to secure charges against James. NBC News reported earlier this month that a source familiar with the matter said there should be “no premature celebrations” related to the incident. The department does not comment on grand jury matters.
Before these charges were filed, Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict Comey, James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in a Truth Social post that was reportedly intended as a private message, calling them “all guilty as hell,” and Trump’s critics have repeatedly accused him of targeting people he considers political opponents.
When asked by Vanity Fair about the government’s mortgage fraud charges against James, Wiles reportedly replied, “Well, that might be the only retaliation.”
Asked by the paper whether he had challenged Trump about the allegations against James, Wiles said: “No, no, not about her.”
“It didn’t matter to her. She had $500 million of his money!” she said with a laugh, Vanity Fair reported.
“I mean, people might think it looks like revenge. I can’t explain why they shouldn’t think that,” Wiles said of Comey’s prosecution.
“I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retaliation,” she continued. “But if he gets a chance, he’ll go for it.”
