CNN
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Trump allies are calling on the federal government to punish Deloitte after an employee at the consulting firm apparently shared his private messages with J.D. Vance.
The attacks on Deloitte are just the latest example of major American companies being targeted by former President Donald Trump or those in his orbit.
Deloitte began feeling the ire of the Trump world soon after the Washington Post published an explosive article on September 27 revealing that Vance had said in a 2020 private message that Trump “has completely failed to advance” his economic agenda. The Post did not reveal who corresponded with Vance, now Trump’s vice president, and leaked those communications.
Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son and campaign surrogate, responded quickly on social media that same day by revealing what he said was the identity and photo of that Deloitte employee and suggesting his employer to pay the price.
“Maybe it’s time for the GOP to end the taxpayer-funded Deloitte service?” Trump Jr. wrote in X, pointing out that Deloitte receives billions of dollars in government contracts. His post was retweeted by a spokesperson for Vance and amplified by Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller.
Trump Jr. told CNN he was expressing his opinion as a private citizen.
According to federal data, Deloitte received approximately $3 billion from the U.S. federal government in fiscal 2024. This includes nine-figure amounts from major agencies such as the Department of Defense, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of National Security.
Two days later, Trump Jr. followed up with another tweet asking if Deloitte had already commented on an employee “conspiring” with the Post to “help Kamala Harris.”
“We will not forget this,” Trump Jr. said in a post shared by GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt, who called on Deloitte to respond to the “outrageous” scandal.
Neither Trump nor Vance have publicly threatened Deloitte, and it’s worth noting that Trump Jr. has indicated he does not intend to serve in the federal government. Representatives for Vance and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
However, the attacks on Deloitte are part of a broader pattern of US businesses being targeted by Trump and his allies and highlight the risk that the former president could weaponize the federal government if he returns to the White House in January.
“It’s scandalous. This shows how inappropriate Trump is as a candidate and how irresponsible he and his family would be if he returned to office,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder and president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, said in a telephone interview with CNN.
More than any other modern American president, Trump has directly targeted individual US businesses.
Only in the past *two* weeks, Trump himself promised to hit John Deere with unthinkably high tariffs and threatened to send the Justice Department after Google.
In the past, Trump has called for boycotts against Apple and Harley-Davidson, accused Amazon of defrauding the US Postal Service, threatened General Motors over where it planned to build its cars and labeled Facebook an “enemy of the people.”
“Donald Trump attacks iconic companies – the very symbols of American capitalism,” Sonnenfeld said. “This is an unprecedented revenge and intrusion into private sector decision-making and a threat to the rule of law.”
Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, described the attacks on Deloitte as “disgraceful.”
Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said Trump’s son was acting as a proxy for Trump’s retaliation against the company.
Painter said taking action against Deloitte’s federal contracts would constitute an “abuse of federal contract law.”
“Federal procurement is based on quality and price, and therefore value to taxpayers, not on who does or does not support the president politically,” Painter said. “Even if Deloitte itself supported Trump’s political opponent, that should not cost it a government contract.”
In a statement to CNN, Trump Jr. said the Deloitte employee “had the right to leak the communications, the Washington Post had the right to print them, and as a private citizen I have the right to have a say in where they go my tax money.” .”
Trump Jr. went on to criticize the Deloitte employee as a “sack of shit” for leaking the private conversation and the Post reporter as a “sack of shit” for not warning his source that “when you engage in political process in this way there is almost always public backlash”.
(The Post said the newspaper informed the Deloitte employee that his name could become public.)
In an article published this weekend that described him as the “crown prince of the MAGA world,” Trump Jr. told the Wall Street Journal that he has no interest in working in government and has no plans to run for office.
Asked about the attacks by some in Trump’s orbit, Deloitte spokesperson Jonathan Gandal told CNN in a statement that the personal messages were shared by an individual “of his own free will without the knowledge of Deloitte, which is a impartial company.”
“Deloitte is deeply committed to supporting our government and commercial clients and we have long experience of doing so across parties and administrations,” the Deloitte spokesperson said.
Deloitte did not respond to questions about whether the company has disciplined the employee or plans to do so.
Unlike other companies that have been threatened by Trump for moving jobs overseas or closing factories, the actions at issue in the Deloitte case centered on one individual at the company. Deloitte was not even mentioned in the leaked private messages, according to the Post.
“Deloitte has about 150,000 professionals in the United States, and one person doesn’t represent the entire company,” Yale’s Sonnenfeld said. “They have the right to their own voice.”
Norman Eisen, a CNN analyst and senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution, said it is “difficult to understand how a company could legally or morally be subject to threats of retaliation for an employee’s personal activities.”
“But Trump and his allies have signaled their intent to weaponize the Justice Department and the government to prosecute their perceived enemies,” Eisen said, “and we must take very seriously the prospect of companies facing retaliation.” .
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