White House leakers used a raft of excuses Sunday to justify sharing sensitive Trump administration information with reporters, reasons ranging from a way to settle personal scores to dealing with a confrontational work environment within the West Wing.
“The most common substantive leaks are the result of someone losing an internal policy debate,” a senior administration official told Axios. “By leaking the decision, the loser gets one last chance to kill it with blowback from the public, Congress, or even the President.”
The aide then likened working in the White House to “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,” the official added.
Other officials attributed the spilling of administration secrets to “personal vendettas” or “to make sure there’s an accurate record of what’s really going on” in the West Wing.
The Axios report chafes with an interview White House chief of staff John Kelly gave last week in which he alluded to a cessation in leaks under his leadership.
“After about six weeks in [the] job one of the reporters said to me, ‘Look you were our worst nightmare. This place was a clown show before you showed up. We didn’t think this president would last a year [or] 18 months. Now that you’re here, there’s order to the place. The leaks all but went away,'” Kelly told NPR.
On Thursday, the White House experienced a major leak in which word got out that White House aide Kelly Sadler mocked the health of Sen. John McCain, who is fighting brain cancer, during a close-door meeting.
