GEOFF BENNETT: While the presidential election is still a year away, former president and current Republican front-runner Donald Trump is already preparing for what he'd do if he returns to the White House.

The Washington Post reports, Donald Trump and his allies are drafting plans to potentially deploy the military against domestic protesters and use the Department of Justice to investigate and punish his critics.

Devlin Barrett is one of the Washington Post reporters looking into this.

And he joins us here in the studio.

Thanks for coming in.

DEVLIN BARRETT, The Washington Post: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you report that much of the planning for a second Trump term has been outsourced to this group of right-wing think tanks dubbed Project 2025. Who's involved and what are they planning?

DEVLIN BARRETT: So, it's dozens of groups, and they're all lending a certain number of folks to sort of map out what a second Trump administration would look like, particularly from a legal perspective, what sort of legal goals would you have for a second Trump administration.

And a lot of what they're planning, a lot of what they're talking about is ways to consolidate control and authority and power of the entire federal government within the White House, so, essentially, reducing the independence of Cabinet secretaries and increasing the ability of people around Trump in his inner circle to control those agencies.

GEOFF BENNETT: I have talked to people close to Donald Trump who say that he says that, in a second term, he wants lawyers who are more loyal to him.

And what he means by that is that he's looking for lawyers who will push the boundaries of the sort of acceptable understanding of the law.

Your reporting goes beyond that to say that he's also looking to harness the power of the DOJ to punish his perceived enemies and critics.

In what ways?

DEVLIN BARRETT: So, he has talked privately, as we report in this story, about going after the people who have criticized him.

And that's not really -- let's be honest.

That's not really a new behavior for Donald Trump.

But I think what's really telling about the people he tends to talk about now, in terms of the ones he wants to punish via the Justice Department, they're his own former aides.

They're people like Bill Barr, his former attorney general, Ty Cobb, his former White House lawyer, John Kelly, his former chief of staff.

These are folks who once worked very closely with him and for him that he once had faith in and confidence in, and now he views them as having betrayed him and he wants the Justice Department to go after them.

GEOFF BENNETT: Your team talked to John Kelly and Ty Cobb about this.

What did they have to say?

DEVLIN BARRETT: They -- obviously, they're very public critics of Donald Trump.

So this, to them, is of a piece with why he should not be the next president.

But one of the things they said is that John Kelly, in particular, made the argument that a second Trump administration is not going to have people like John Kelly in it, because people like John Kelly would say no to Donald Trump.

And the second administration is much more likely to have people to say yes to Donald Trump, no matter what the ask is.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about that.

What would a second Trump term look like, as compared to the first, now that Donald Trump knows how to utilize the levers of power available to him?

DEVLIN BARRETT: Right.

One of the things that came out in our reporting is that one of the lessons Trump took from his first administration is that he had too many people -- he often uses the expression, Federalist Society lawyers to refer to a type of conservative lawyer who wouldn't go as far as he wanted them to go.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, the Federalist Society is not conservative enough for Donald Trump.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Right.

That's the point.

And, almost more importantly, they would not do enough of what he wanted them to do.

I think, to your -- the point you made earlier, so much of this conversation so far - - and let's be fair.

This is an early stage of this conversation.

This is a lot of people kicking around ideas in private.

But so much of those conversations are about, how do you get people to do everything, or as close to everything as you can, that the president wants them to do?

GEOFF BENNETT: To include invoking the Insurrection Act to put down protests on Inauguration Day if he's elected.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Right.

So one of -- the Insurrection Act became this kind of fantasy scenario for a lot of Trump supporters in 2020.

And what you're seeing now in some of these private conversations about Project 2025 is, there is a group of people who are talking about, well, can we invoke the Insurrection Act right out of the gate to essentially put down any protests?

And that is very alarming to a different sort of group of conservative lawyers who see that and hear that and think, like, that is not a great idea.

GEOFF BENNETT: How is any of this different than what Donald Trump would say at a rally?

I mean, he talks about this stuff all the time.

Is what's different is that people are actually putting plans together?

DEVLIN BARRETT: I think two things are different.

One, he does talk in general terms at rallies about how he wants to get even, how he wants to take control, and how he wants to sort of quell any sort of disagreement or dissent, even within his own government, should he become elected president.

I think what's different is that they are working on more specific concepts and more specific actions, for example, a host of executive orders, which is something he's always believed in and liked the idea of an executive order, even if it's oftentimes, like, a little more show than substance.

I think you're seeing those conversations happen, because what's going on in a lot of these circles and these conversations is that there is a growing realization among conservative lawyers that Donald Trump will almost certainly be the GOP nominee.

And if that's going to be true, all of these conservative groups, all of these conservative activists, all of these conservative lawyers are making decisions about where they want to fit into that picture if he becomes president.

GEOFF BENNETT: Devlin Barrett, such important reporting.

Great speaking with you.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Thank you.