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Groton Daily Independent
Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 028 ~ 14 of 54
him and committing a felony by leaking information. But the personal nancial information that he said someone had “leaked” about him had simply been obtained through a public records request.
Then in an explegtive-laden interview published by The New Yorker late Thursday, an angry Scaramucci accused Priebus of being a “f------ paranoid schizophrenic” and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon of trying to burnish his own reputation.
He also threatened to re White House staffers who leaked news about a dinner he had with the president.
“They’ll all be red by me,” Scaramucci told the magazine. “I red one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll re tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”
By day’s end Scaramucci sounded calmer, though not regretful.
“I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate ght for @ realDonaldTrump’s agenda. #MAGA,” he tweeted. The tag at the end stands for Trump’s “Make America Great Again.”
He also blamed the reporter, Ryan Lizza, for reporting the conversation. “I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter,” he added later. “It won’t happen again.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred reporters to the rst tweet.
The president’s senior counselor, Kellyanne Conway, had earlier speculated in a Fox News interview that unnamed forces were out to get Scaramucci, saying: “Somebody is trying to get in his way and scare him off.”
“There are leaks and then there are people using the press to shiv each other in the ribs,” she said.
Meanwhile, no one in the White House took up for Priebus — including Priebus himself. Sanders avoided giving a direct answer when asked whether Trump has con dence in Priebus.
The past 24 hours provided the clearest evidence yet that Scaramucci and Trump, both brash New Yorkers, are cut from the same cloth. One of their shared techniques: publicly shaming members of their own team. Scaramucci’s goading of Priebus came as Trump continued to fume publicly and privately about his at- torney general. Trump has been critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Justice Department investigation into whether the president’s campaign had anything to do with Russian
interference in the election last fall.
“It hasn’t been my best week ... for my relationship with the president,” Sessions acknowledged in an
interview with The Associated Press in El Salvador, where he was on a mission to increase international cooperation against gangs.
He said he would stay in his post and ght for Trump’s agenda “as long as he sees that as appropriate.”
Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker and frequent outside adviser to Trump, said in an interview that Scaramucci’s attacks on Priebus are problematic. “They’ve got to get this sorted out between the two of them, and it would be nice if they didn’t do it in public,” he said.
Yet after Scaramucci’s call-in CNN performance — a move lifted from his boss’ playbook — it was dif cult to see how the two could mend fences.
“I don’t know if this is repairable or not — that will be up to the president,” Scaramucci said on air. He compared their relationship to that of brothers who are “rough on each other,” invoking the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Cain murdered Abel.
The bad blood stems from Scaramucci’s view that Priebus was insuf ciently supportive of Trump at the end of the election campaign and his belief that Priebus persuaded the president to keep him out of the White House in January. Six months later, Scaramucci’s close relationship with the president trumped op- position to his hiring from Priebus and Bannon.
Scaramucci’s arrival in the West Wing last Friday marked the rst in a series of falling dominoes that seemed to be leading toward Priebus. Press secretary Sean Spicer, a close ally of Priebus, resigned last week. Scaramucci then forced out another communications aide close to Priebus.
Scaramucci then tweeted that someone had illegally leaked nancial information about him, conspicuously mentioning Priebus’ Twitter handle. Scaramucci later deleted that tweet and said he had only mentioned Priebus to show that all senior leaders are taking leaks seriously.