Donald Trump’s advisers desperately try to take each other down in scandal
Another day, another major scandal is coming out of Donald Trump’s White House. This time it’s centered around one of his top advisers, and it threatens to envelop half a dozen of them as it unfolds. It’s the kind of scandal whose specifics will serve to make Trump look particularly bad in light of things he’s said in the past. But here’s the big upshot: the story exposing the scandal could only have been leaked by a top Trump adviser to begin with.
The story is that Jared Kushner has been using a personal email account for White House business the entire time since Trump took office. It’s illegal to conduct certain kinds of government business over private email, so Kushner may be looking at legal problems. This also raises the question of whether he sent any classified information over private email, or if the advisers he emailed received classified information. It also makes Trump look like an idiot, considering the lies he told about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Politico broke the scandal (link), but the real story is where this leak came from.
These details about Kushner could only have been leaked by one of the high level White House advisers he was emailing to begin with. Maybe it’s someone who’s still on staff. Maybe it’s one of the numerous top advisers who have resigned or been forced out. Either way, it points to the underlying problem: these advisers are now desperate to take each other down, and they’re willing to go scorched earth to make it happen.
This seems to go beyond the mere personal spite that’s long existed among the warring factions in Donald Trump’s chaotic administration. Whoever leaked this story means business. Someone is trying to take Jared Kushner down with an urgency. With the Russia scandal now swallowing up Trump’s entire senior staff, it’s become clear that some of them will flip while others will go down – and some are already trying to take each other down before it even reaches that point.
