READ: Six months ago, Trump accused me of “treason.” I have a message for my watchers.

My life changed on April 9. But so did the lives of those who answer Trump's directives.

Six months ago, the President of the United States accused me of “treason.” This wasn’t in passing or an errant comment at a campaign rally (as he’s done to me before). This time it was declared while he signed an executive order to have me investigated under the authority of the highest office in the land.

An investigation into what, you ask? Well, that’s a good question. Technically I don’t know. I assume the President didn’t know either. Why else would he declare me guilty of treason and — within the same minute — sign an order to his lieutenants to go find the evidence? No matter. The real reason is not hard to divine.

For seven years, since serving in his administration, I have criticized Donald Trump. Relentlessly. I have tried to shine a light on his abuses of power, and I make absolutely no apologies for it. I stand by my words. The ensuing doxxing, harassment, financial turmoil, abuse, legal proceedings, death threats, and investigations have been unsuccessful in dissuading me from speaking out. If anything, it’s reminded me how important the truth actually is.

Lately, he’s made my job easier. He’s proven my warnings daily, including about political retaliation. Yesterday Trump’s team brought bogus charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, the other week it was James Comey, and soon they will reportedly do so against former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Little cognitive processing is required to understand what these people have in common. I share their sins of candor, which is why I expect the knock at my door, sooner or later.

So on this six-month anniversary of Trump’s order against me, I would like to write an open letter to my watchers.

I know you’re out there. Yes, I’m writing to you — the analysts who’ve been asked to read my emails and the auditors who may be reviewing my finances and the appointees combing through old government files looking for a damning line to spin. You’re not nameless or faceless. You’re public servants, or at least, you were. Many of you came to government because you believed in something greater than yourself. Because you wanted to uphold the rule of law in the freest nation on earth.

Yet here you are. Tasked with watching an American citizen for criticizing a president.

You didn’t go into government for this, did you?

When a head of state orders his agencies to investigate his critics, it’s not quite the mission you were sold on. It’s vengeance. If you studied history, which I presume you did, you might even recall that the defining gesture of every authoritarian is to mistake obedience for patriotism. Now you have a front-row seat.

What you may have forgotten, though, was that the line between democracy and despotism isn’t drawn by a king on a throne or even a very angry man in an Oval Office. It’s drawn by the people who carry out his orders. It’s drawn by you. Every email you send on his behalf, every background check you reopen, every whisper of “just following orders” pushes that line closer to the abyss.

You didn’t go into government for this, did you?

I’ve read your handiwork before, back when it was meant to advance the rhythms of good government. Sometimes if you didn’t like an assignment, you wrote about “referrals” and “preliminary findings” and “draft recommendations” in such a way so as to pass responsibility ever so gently on to the next person with a keyboard until it stopped somewhere else. These days, you do it while dressing up retribution in the language of law. Sanitizing it with procedure. You tell yourself it’s not political. Someone must have actually found the evidence. Why else would this guy be accused of treason?

I know that you know better. Maybe you don’t drive home thinking you’re the villain in your own story. But at the end of each day, you get in the car and assure yourself, “It will never go anywhere,” or “The lawyers will probably squash it.” Meanwhile, your goal is to wash your hands of any involvement as quickly as possible, keep your head down, and hope that it just blows over. At worst, you’ll be a footnote in a foolish request that will never see the light of day.

You didn’t go into government for this, did you?

Every democracy that dies follows a similar pattern. The ruler talks about punishing his critics. Then, he demands it. But those on the receiving end are in denial. Surely such a thing could never come to fruition. The bureaucracy will kill the idea, like all things. So the bureaucrats lay low. But the ruler can’t do it alone. He presses harder.

Perhaps you got an email reminder last night. “What about that damn executive order into Miles Taylor?” “Where are your findings?” “What’s the status update?” “What can we charge him with?” “The president wants to know.”

Well, your plan is in trouble now. Apparently this isn’t blowing over. He needs the watchers to make the threats real. He needs you. I understand that you’d really like to go back to your day job — perhaps fighting child exploitation or cybercrime or foreign espionage — all vastly more important missions. But the president doesn’t think so. And you don’t want to be fired by the president. So if you give him what he wants, you reason to yourself, you can go back to protecting the country.

Maybe you’ll clear your calendar today and hold your nose. You’ll do what they asked.

You didn’t go into government for this, did you?

For a few days or weeks or months you may hear nothing. You may feel relieved.

But what happens when the ugly demand — because of the box you checked or the file you pulled — grows legs and walks into the world with your name in the footnotes? When the “draft” you wrote becomes a directive or the memo becomes a legal indictment? When your reluctant hypotheticals become headlines?

Maybe you’ll tell yourself it’s out of your hands now. The target’s lawyers will vindicate him; friendly politicians will come to his aid. Democracy can survive a bad deed against one good man, can’t it? Or maybe you’ll look away when my name scrolls across the television chyron — when the nation you serve slanders one of its own for the crime of dissent. It’s not personal, you tell yourself. You were only doing your job. And if I’m defiant and show no remorse, well, you’ll decide that I deserved it.

Yet you will remember this moment. Reading this. The small choices that stacked up into a larger act, one that you facilitated along the way. In fact, you’ll remember it again when the request comes in with a different name. Another target of the president’s revenge. You’ll realize the problem didn’t go away. It was industrialized, and suddenly you’re part of a machine. One of its operators. On that day, a voice in your conscience will whisper that the system you once trusted to uphold the law is being used to erase it. You’ll remember that you could’ve helped stop it and didn’t.

You didn’t go into government for this, did you?

When allegations are made and the charges are brought, and I suspect they will be, you’ll see that this isn’t about me anymore. I don’t require your sympathy or support. I never did. It’s about the precedent you helped set and about the person who comes after me. If the government can label one critic a traitor, it can label anyone. If it can dredge up flimsy evidence to satisfy a vendetta, it can manufacture it for so many more, including you. Once the machinery starts grinding through innocent people, it never stops until it consumes its operators. My study of history tells me as much.

You didn’t go into government for this, did you?

But I might be wrong. Perhaps you did. You might have been recruited into the Trump administration for exactly this purpose and prepared to do what the man at the top feared people at the bottom would be too slow, too moral, or too scrupulous to do. Maybe you relished the idea of breaking the law by pursuing revenge. In that case, if this is what you signed up for, then I hope you’re familiarizing yourself with the justice system. You will need it. When it’s all said and done — and trust me, the truth will be said, and this mess will be done — you’ll probably need a good lawyer.

I’m happy to provide recommendations. I have the best.

P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TREASON

Here’s what’s coming up.

1. TODAY / Fri, Oct 10 (5:15p ET) - Stacey Abrams tells us what a real resistance looks like - She’s been on a roll. Georgia politician, lawyer, and Democratic leader Stacey Abrams has given a lot of thought about what needs to happen next. Come find out what that is. You can join here.