"Round and round we go, where we stop nobody knows" ~ ~ Sooz

Jonathan Swan 17 hours ago
White House leakers leak about leaking

This White House leaks like there’s no tomorrow.

The big picture: The leaks come in all shapes and sizes: small leaks, real-time leaks, weaponized leaks, historical leaks. Sensitive Oval Office conversations have leaked, and so have talks in cabinet meetings and the Situation Room. You name it, they leak it.

* My colleague Mike Allen, who has spent nearly 20 years covering the White House, says we learn more about what's going on inside the Trump White House in a week than we did in a year of the George W. Bush presidency.

* This White House leaks so much that meetings called to bemoan leaks begin with acknowledgement the bemoaning will be leaked, which is promptly leaked...by several leakers in a smallish room.

Why does this White House leak like it’s going out of style? I reached out to some of the Trump administration’s most prolific leakers — people who have been wonderful sources to me (and, I assume, plenty of other reporters) — to get them to explain the draw.

* "To be honest, it probably falls into a couple of categories,” one current White House official tells me. "The first is personal vendettas. And two is to make sure there's an accurate record of what's really going on in the White House."

* "To cover my tracks, I usually pay attention to other staffers' idioms and use that in my background quotes. That throws the scent off me," the current White House official added.

* "The most common substantive leaks are the result of someone losing an internal policy debate," a current senior administration official told me. "By leaking the decision, the loser gets one last chance to kill it with blowback from the public, Congress or even the President."

* "Otherwise," the official added, "you have to realize that working here is kind of like being in a never-ending 'Mexican Standoff.' Everyone has guns (leaks) pointed at each other and it's only a matter of time before someone shoots. There's rarely a peaceful conclusion so you might as well shoot first."

A former senior White House official who turned leaking into an art form made a slightly more nuanced defense of the practice. "Leaking is information warfare; it's strategic and tactical — strategic to drive narrative, tactical to settle scores,” the source said.

* Another former administration official said grudges have a lot to do with it. "Any time I leaked, it was out of frustration with incompetent or tone-deaf leadership,” the former official said.

* “Bad managers almost always breed an unhappy workplace, which ultimately results in pervasive leaking," the former official added. "And there has been plenty of all those things inside this White House. Some people use leaking to settle personal scores, or even worse to attack the President, but for me it was always to make a point about something that I felt was being unjustly ignored by others."

Be smart: To any would-be leakers who are considering the practice, I'm also told leaking is pretty fun. Give me a call if you'd like to try it out.

https://www.axios.com/trump-white-house-leakers-leak-about-leaking-dae05b8e-e792-41a7-bb74-c2756b542cd0.html?utm_source=sidebar

I think this fits soundly in this thread. I will expound more after the part of the article I'm posting. It's about the cruel and insensitive remark made by Kelly Sadler about John McCain.



http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/ ... ailsignout

My point would be: "If you can speak your mind in such a way and not be chastised by your peers in the room, then you need to examine your moral ground."
If ONE person had chastised Sadler, it would have been much better. However, I have the feeling that they all sat around nodding their heads in agreement like the ignorant bobble-heads they are. These people have no moral compass, no feeling of compassion and want to "win" at any cost.

And one more thing. Joke? Seriously? The fact that they are trying to pass this off as a joke is a joke in itself. We are not stupid.

Speaking of the Sadler thing. Melania had kidney surgery. I wonder how these idiots would feel if a Dem said something like: "That's a real shame, but Melania can live with one kidney, can't she......so it doesn't matter the outcome of this surgery."

And apparently her "loving husband" saw no reason to waste his time being there during her surgery ~ he was scheduled to "helicopter" there at 5:00pm today ~

Sooz

Probably just got back from Florida and weekend golfing.

Today's truism: "The level of dysfunction in the Trump White House is difficult to overstate." ~ ~ "live links" in original ~ Sooz

Trump determined to punish the leakers he doesn’t think exist
05/15/18 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen

Almost immediately after Donald Trump’s inauguration, newly installed White House officials seemed eager to share their bizarre experiences with the press. The president’s outrage about the leaks from his own team was obvious.

He did not, however, know quite what to say about them. In February 2017, during an appearance at CPAC, Trump told conservative activists that the leaks aren’t real; they’re just made-up quotes from unethical and dishonest journalists. In the same speech, the president went on to say that he’s furious about officials from his own team had leaked real, sensitive information.

How did Trump reconcile the contradiction? By all appearances, he didn’t seem to understand that the contradiction existed.

More than a year later, the president is still struggling, as a tweet from yesterday afternoon helped prove.


So, the leaks are not a problem, and they are a problem. They are invented, and they are real. The leakers don’t really exist, and they very much exist.

Trump’s had a year and a half to figure this out, and as of yesterday afternoon, those efforts don’t appear to be going well.

Of course, we know the impetus for this latest Trump World anxiety. Last week, during a meeting on Gina Haspel’s nomination to lead the CIA, a White House official mocked Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) failing health, deeming his concerns about Haspel irrelevant because “he’s dying anyway.” Kelly Sadler, the White House’s director of surrogate and coalitions outreach, has not yet issued any kind of public apology.

But as the controversy grew over the incident, Trump World decided the real problem wasn’t Sadler’s comment, but rather, the fact that the public learned about Sadler’s comment. What was leaked, the president’s aides said, was less important than the fact that the quote was leaked at all.

And while I don’t think this effort to change the subject has been especially successful, there’s been some increased reflection on why so many members of Team Trump have been eager to let the world know about behind-the-scenes developments.

Axios yesterday published some notable perspectives:


The level of dysfunction in the Trump White House is difficult to overstate.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-determined-punish-the-leakers-he-doesnt-think-exist#break

Sounds like a real "fun" place to work, no? ~ ~ Sooz

LIVEWIRE
To Prevent Leaks, Hall Monitors Sweep White House For Personal Cellphones
By Kate Riga | May 16, 2018 7:40 am

As the Trump administration agonizes over the leakiness of its White House, chief of staff John Kelly has implemented a new stopgap measure—glorified hall monitors.

Kelly’s ban on personal cell phones in the White House has been in place since January, but a Tuesday CNN report revealed new details about how the ban is executed.

Staffers reportedly leave their phones in lockers during the day, setting off an hours-long chorus of vibrations and rings. To ensure that White House officials have properly stowed their electronics, suit-clad men reportedly sweep the hallways and rooms with handheld devices that can pinpoint prohibited phones. Per CNN, the devices are so savvy that they can differentiate between types of electronic contraband.

Though Kelly has threatened White House bans for any staffer found with an illicit phone, unnamed sources told CNN that few people take that seriously. Some added that the draconian measures did not prevent staffer Kelly Sadler’s off-color joke about Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “dying anyway” from leaking, the impetus of the recent crackdown.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/to-prevent-leaks-kelly-has-hall-monitors-patrolling-white-house-for-personal-cellphones

Full-blown paranoia.

Do White House staffers call talking to the press "taking a leak?"