Washington – A former Donald Trump associate and campaign official is blaming the bumpy start of the billionaire’s presidency on mixed loyalties in the White House.
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Roger Stone declined to name names in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday, but he discussed “a division between those who are loyal to the president and those who are loyal to the Republican National Committee.”
When asked if he was referring to Reince Priebus (ryns PREE’-bus), who headed the RNC before joining Trump’s team and becoming chief of staff in the West Wing, Stone demurred, indicating he didn’t want to say who he was talking about.
Stone says, “The leaking that is coming out of the White House is a manifestation of the fact” that some of the people Trump hired “are not loyal.”
He adds, “I think it’s healthier to have people in the administration who share the president’s vision of where he wants to take the country.”
In a pair of tweets Thursday Trump warned “low-life leakers” of classified information that they will be caught.
Trump tweeted, “Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!”
Trump writes, “the spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!”
Trump’s national security adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, resigned at Trump’s urging this week after a series of reports revealed Flynn held addressed the issue of sanctions with a Russian diplomat before Trump was in office.
On Wednesday, Trump said it was “really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.”
He tweeted Wednesday that “classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!”
The constitution is an old piece of paper, incompetence and we are elected and can do what we want , semi-fascism.
Sounds like a run of the mill blast at whistle blowers…by an administration which thinks the reporting of a misdeed is a far worse than the misdeed itself. Sad
This guy has no clue how to govern, hasn’t done much since becoming president, and is mired by infighting and inexperience.
Infighting is something that every person capable of being president would expect, and would think about it when picking staff. This know-nothing had not predicted it, and it comes to him as a complete shock.
NY Times today perfectly summed up Trump’s hypocrisy on leaks and disloyalty:
“As a candidate for president, Donald J. Trump embraced the hackers who had leaked Hillary Clinton’s emails to the press, declaring at a rally in Pennsylvania, “I love WikiLeaks!”
“To the cheering throngs that night, Mr. Trump marveled that “nothing is secret today when you talk about the internet.” The leakers, he said, had performed a public service by revealing what he called a scandal with no rival in United States history.
“Now, after less than four weeks in the Oval Office, President Trump has changed his mind.
“At a news conference on Wednesday and in a series of Twitter postings earlier in the day, Mr. Trump angrily accused intelligence agencies of illegally leaking information about Michael T. Flynn, his former national security adviser, who resigned after reports that he had lied about conversations with the Russian ambassador.
““It’s a criminal action, criminal act,” Mr. Trump fumed at the White House. In a Twitter message, he asserted that “the real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!””