Mooch The Merciless ‘Terminates’ First Suspected White House Leaker
ZeroHedge.com
Just days after newly appointed White House Communications Director Anthony “Mooch” Scaramucci took up his position, he is laying down the law, telling Politico Monday that there would be changes in his communications shop – but he was still evaluating the landscape.
“Senior people have gone to the comms people and said, leak this or leak that on this person or that person.““The comms department reports to me. I report to the president. It has to stop, and I’ve told them that. If it doesn’t stop, I’ll fire all of you.“
And today, it appears the first actions have taken place.
The financier and longtime Trump surrogate confirmed to Politico early Tuesday that he planned to start by dismissing assistant press secretary Michael Short at a morning meeting.
Multiple White House sources tell Breitbart News that Short was a leaker, and worked closely with now former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh – another RNC wing official who was terminated earlier this year for her own suspected leaking.
Short, who initially said Tuesday that he hadn’t yet been informed of any decision, resigned Tuesday afternoon…
As Politico’s Tara Palmeri reports, Short’s ouster is Scaramucci’s first warning shot to White House aides who have been perceived as disloyal to the president. In an echo of Trump’s not-so-subtle warning to Jeff Sessions about his status as attorney general, Scaramucci’s vow to “fire everybody” is a warning to staffers perceived as leakers.
“I’m going to fire everybody, that’s how I’m going to do it,”Scaramucci said to reporters outside of the White House on Tuesday.“You’re either going to stop leaking or you’re going to be fired.”
Scaramucci claimed to have the full authority of the president to clean out the communications shop and put his own stamp on the team.
Short originally worked for the Trump campaign – placed on it by Priebus – and quit the campaign, sources tell Breitbart News, after the Access Hollywood tape came out. Politico confirmed this report…
“He was scorned by many of his colleagues for quitting the Trump campaign, only to rejoin as a White House staffer because of Priebus,” Palmeri wrote of Short.
“In a story often retold by campaign staffers, they arrived at Trump Tower one morning, months before the election, to see Short’s computer left open on his otherwise empty desk. He had quit the campaign that day and never returned.The next time he was seen by former campaign staffers was in January on their first day in the White House, where some were stunned to learn that they were going to have to work alongside him or for some of the press assistants subordinate to him.”
Short denied to Breitbart News that he is a leaker. “I have never leaked,” he said in an email. According to Palmeri, too, Short has now denied that he quit the campaign – he just says he went to work back at the RNC. Short is expected to be the first in a wave of staffers closely aligned with Priebus to be shown the door.
Nevertheless, Mooch The Merciless has started draining the swamp…