Anthony Scaramucci — the shortest-serving White House communications director in history — claims that he has special insights into the source of a series of leaks that have come from the White House recently. According to “Mooch” (as he is called) the leaks came from former White House Counsel Don McGahn.
And “Mooch” says that McGahn became disgruntled and started leaking to the press because he was upset that he didn’t receive a farewell party when he left the White House. McGahn was fired by Trump and left the Trump administration in October.
Scaramucci was on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time Tuesday night alleging that McGahn was behind a series of leaks, although he did not make clear how he reached this conclusion.
Examples he gave of leaks from McGahn were the newly-released report that Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump had used personal email accounts for official business, and that the New York Times story that Trump had ordered an investigation of Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
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“For some reason, I think he’s upset he didn’t get a farewell party from the president “ Scaramucci told Cuomo.
When Scaramucci said that leaking is wrong, and leakers are “disloyal,” Cuomo replied that maybe the leakers are “loyal to the country.”
“I wholly and totally disagree with that, Chris,” Scaramucci responded. “I said it to Jake Tapper, the notion these people need to protect the country from the president is a bunch of nonsense.”
During the show they discussed at length the Monday New York Times story in which McGahn reportedly talked Trump out of ordering the investigation and prosecution of former rivale Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey.
According to the report, McGahn received numerous requests from the president to instruct the Justice Department to prosecute Clinton for her use of private email servers while serving as Secretary of State. While campaigning, Trump had said Clinton should be jailed for her email problems, leading his crowds to chant “lock her up.”
“Let me tell you something, I have been in situations with the president, so has other people inside the administration, he’ll cough something, he’ll say something and you’re like, ‘All right, he’s just blowing off steam. Okay?’ He wasn’t — he wasn’t pushing to prosecute those people,” Scaramucci claimed.
“It smells to me like the leak came from McGahn,” Scaramucci claimed. “For some reason, I think he’s upset he didn’t get a farewell party from the president.”
CNN host Cuomo was buying Mooch’s argument, and replied in amazement:
“Anthony, come on. This is the second time he had to write a memo to the president that we know about saying, ‘Mr. President, please don’t do this, back off, it’s crazy, you’ll get impeached. Don’t do it.”
But Scaramucci didn’t give in, saying:
“He wasn’t — look, we all know that have worked for the president on the campaign, in the staff, when he’s blowing off steam when he means something. This is some kind of retribution by McGahn to the president. The president has obviously figured out that he wasn’t 100 percent loyal to him.”
The truth is that Don McGahn has cooperated extensively with Robert Mueller and told the special counsel everything he knows. He did this to protect himself legally. He also took steps to protect the country from the craziness of dictator wannabe Donald Trump.
What Scaramucci said about McGahn wanting a farewell party is beyond ridiculous. But it does show that he is still trying to flatter and defend the president, and will go to any length to try to get on Donald Trump’s good side.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
