Lawyer warns Trump just 'empowered' Stephen Miller with 'striking' national security memo

Lawyer warns Trump just 'empowered' Stephen Miller with 'striking' national security memo

President Donald Trump issued a "striking" national security memo recently that would allow the administration to go after American citizens using the same tools the country uses to protect itself from foreign adversaries, according to one analyst.

Ryan Goodman, a national security expert and law professor at New York University, discussed the recent memo, called NSPM7, on a recent episode of "The Bulwark Live" with Bill Kristol, the outlet's editor-at-large. Goodman was visibly stunned as he recalled some of the impacts Trump's memo could have on American citizens.

"It's using the national security apparatus in such a way that's focused domestically; one can only assume that Steven Miller is empowered by this," Goodman said. "It's connecting it up with national security frameworks and then imposing it domestically."

The directive calls on the National Security apparatus to go after anti-fascist groups on the left. It also calls on law enforcement to "[investigate] all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them."

Goodman argued that the language sounded too familiar.

"I have to assume that [Miller] wrote a large part of it," Goodman said. "I mean, it just looks like it comes out of his mind in a certain sense and his rhetoric around this."