Days after Trump’s 2024 election victory, the intelligence staff gathered in our boss’s office. He was not a man who frightened easily. But he knew what was coming. “I need to strongly advise you to leave before Inauguration Day,” he said. “There’s a world in which you’ll be targeted individually.” He didn’t say my name. He didn’t need to. “They know how to use the tools this time. Install loyalists at CIA, FBI, and Justice—turn clearances and investigations into weapons.”

I told him I wasn’t resigning. Then the CIA’s deputy director sat me down. “Julia, look at me. You don’t have to do this. You have a target on your back that others don’t.”

“With respect, sir—this is what we do.”

— “The Wrong Kind of American,” The Atlantic