Political commentator and national security expert Marcy Wheeler pointed to three recent instances in which President Donald Trump has lashed out at the media and issued new threats.
Writing on Thursday, Wheeler pointed to a letter sent by new White House Counsel Will Scharf to Politico complaining about its owner. The letter was first reported by Marc Caputo.
Scharf alleged articles published between Oct. 14 and Oct. 17 were "demonstrably false and defamatory" and part of a conspiracy to "manufacture a narrative of dysfunction and infighting in the White House."
He went on to demand the stories be retracted and corrections be issued "or face the consequences."
Caputo’s report closed with a comment from one of Trump's aides about Politico's owner being a foreign-owned right-wing billionaire.
Wheeler thinks these attacks are all part of the White House paving the road toward inevitable excuses and finger-pointing that will come from an electoral bloodbath.
The three articles Scharf complained about cover internal power struggles between White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and some in the administration. The White House has issued some on-the-record denials about the reports.
Scharf cited three articles in which Politico reported a power struggle targeting Susie Wiles for which the White House issued some form of on-the-record denials.
One was an Oct. 15 report, “Trump’s ice maiden is under fire,” which appeared in "Playbook," Politico's morning newsletter. Trump called it "fake news." The second Playbook report revealed a "freakout" in the White House over Politico's previous story. According to the source there, Trump "blew up" about it, calling it "unbelievably stupid and false." The third was a report titled “Susie Wiles helped set up Fox interview ahead of press secretary’s exit." Politico has issued a correction about the last story. The report insinuates that ex-press secretary Katie Zacharia was set up in her interview with Sean Hannity. In fact, it was Zacharia who set up her own interview with the Fox host.
A correction on the report now reads: "CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report, including its headline, mischaracterized the role White House chief of staff Susie Wiles played in then-press secretary Katie Zacharia’s interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. POLITICO’s follow-up reporting indicates she did not play a direct role in setting up the interview.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles 'offered positive reinforcement' for Katie Zacharia to appear on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last week, according to a senior White House official."
Wheeler, for her part, said Trump doesn't appear ready to use the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) laws he has been known to ignore. So, while Politico might be panicking about a legal fight, she doubts it will go further than pool access.
One of the White House's challenges has been finding the people leaking to the press. A previous story revealed that Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel were trying to hunt down the person who leaked that a Qatari-gifted jet wasn't equipped to handle international travel close to Iran. Trump had to secretly hide in a food cart to sneak onto the older presidential plane. It was never known why that switch needed to be so clandestine or what the plane lacked.
The White House argued that it was a colossal breach of national security. It never found the leaker.
For Wheeler, the issue is that, to her, the White House counsel is attempting to suppress reports about making Wiles the scapegoat for the bloodbath.
"As the first cited article lays out (and cites four people who are getting calls from Trump about replacing Wiles; it should be noted that Trump always solicits advice from Hannity), Trump is testing whether to replace Wiles with people that include Stephen Miller, who (along with Boris Epshteyn) is reportedly close to Scharf," she wrote.
The second Politico report says Trump aide Natalie Harp, who typically surrounds Trump with news that keeps him happy and calm, printed the first one. That second report denied that Trump or anyone at the White House read the first report. But Scharf's letter made it clear that in fact they had.
How else would "Scharf have come to complain about it and the follow-up, you dummies? This threat from Scharf is, quite literally, a legal freak-out," asked Wheeler.
Wheeler thinks the leaker is likely someone like Miller and that it's part of his power play to score the chief of staff gig. In the mean time, the White House Counsel is doing "something legally and logically stupid to punish Politico for reporting what is really going on," she closed.
