Newly appointed White House aide Tony Sayegh will try to bring cohesion to a disorderly White House impeachment response amid internal backbiting, polls that have shown growing support for impeaching President Trump, and frustration on Capitol Hill that Republicans are not receiving clear marching orders.
The Washington Examiner has learned that Sayegh, a former Treasury official, will work with the White House communications team, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his staff, and other administration offices to develop and streamline a strategy to dispute allegations and make sure Republicans are on the same page.
“I’m always the kind of guy who likes a strategy and a plan and a coordinated effort,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican aligned with the president.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was brought in to partner with Sayegh and will be the media face of the anti-impeachment campaign, with plans to leverage her legal background to discredit allegations by House Democrats that the president abused his power in his dealings with Ukraine.
“Expect to see Pam on TV a lot,” an administration official familiar with the arrangement told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “Tony will be managing a lot of the strategy.”
Trump is still eschewing a war room, White House officials insist, instead tapping two field marshals, Sayegh and Bondi, to gel an effort that has been bogged down in an internecine struggle and blame game between acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Cipollone. “Pam and Tony are coming in to help the administration play offense,” the administration official familiar with the arrangement said.
Cipollone is said to have favored Sayegh’s addition. But sources say that there is no friction between Sayegh and Mulvaney.
Sayegh and Bondi will report to White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham instead of Mulvaney. Grisham is close to Trump and his family, and Mulvaney appears to have lost favor with the president. Sayegh and Bondi, who started this week, have good relationships with Trump and two of his most influential aides, adviser Kellyanne Conway and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Sayegh and Bondi, who will serve as temporary employees, are in the process of getting up to speed in their new posts, a late start given that public impeachments began Wednesday.
Sayegh met with GOP communication aides on Capitol Hill this week, and a House Republican leadership aide said the session was a good start toward improving White House collaboration with his allies in Congress. “Tony was prepared, constructive, and projected a real leadership role in this,” the House GOP leadership aide said.
There had been significant uncertainty this week about details behind the hiring of Sayegh and Bondi.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the eve of the first public impeachment hearings, multiple White House communication aides were unsure when the two would start work or what their job responsibilities would be. Sayegh, a one-time contender for a permanent appointment to the White House communications team, was spotted Tuesday in Grisham’s empty office while Grisham was in New York with Trump.
It’s not certain that Bondi, who has a close personal relationship with Trump, has been present at the White House since being appointed to her new job.
Nevertheless, her presence is being felt, along with that of Sayegh, an official said.
“This is the most optimistic I’ve felt since impeachment started in terms of internal morale,” one official said. “I feel like the addition of Tony and Pam gives us two energized reinforcements with the ability to focus exclusively on impeachment, which helps the team coalesce in a way that I expect to be highly effective.”
