Fox News claims Donald Trump fired Katie Walsh for leaking info, had her escorted out of White House
Earlier today, Donald Trump’s White House announced that Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh is resigning in order to go work for a pro-Trump outside group. But this evening a Fox News / Fox Business reporter is telling a very different version of the story: that Trump fired Walsh for leaking information and had her escorted out of the building.
This is a remarkable claim, as Katie Walsh was the right hand person to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and was one of the higher ranking people in the White House. And yet Fox Business reporter John Cardillo has tweeted the following:
Very strong source told me that Katie Walsh was fired for leaking. Her creds were yanked and she was escorted out of the White House.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) March 30, 2017
Cardillo also went on to assert that the move was a stepping stone toward ousting Reince Priebus himself:
Reince does not have long as Chief of Staff. He's iced out now. I called Katie Walsh being a problem in December. Trust me on this.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) March 30, 2017
If this does turn out to be true, it raises the crucial question of just what Katie Walsh may have been leaking. We’ve checked the most popular Twitter accounts that claim to be anonymous White House staffers, and none of them have been visibly affected by today’s events, suggesting she wasn’t behind any of them. However, Walsh could have instead been leaking info directly to reporters behind the scenes.
There has long been a power struggle among Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Jared Kushner within Donald Trump’s White House. Various negative and embarrassing details about each of them have consistently leaked out to the media, leading many to ask if they’ve been leaking these things about each other to try to get ahead within the power ranks. Katie Walsh was closely aligned with Priebus.
Again, this is from just one source, and it’s coming from Fox News, which can be suspect. We don’t yet have external confirmation that Katie Walsh was indeed fired and escorted out for leaking info. However, if this is not true, it means someone in the White House has leaked a fake claim about Walsh being a leaker, presumably to try to harm Priebus. Contribute to Palmer Report
