Many scandals ago, White House aide Kelly Sadler made a controversial and insensitive joke about Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that made its way to the press — but it still haunts staffers as the Trump administration’s war on leakers rages on.
The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that in a recent meeting with President Donald Trump, Sadler claimed Mercedes Schlapp, the White House director of strategic communications, was the source of the administration’s leak problems. According to two of the Beast’s sources, Schlapp was offended and “heated” by the accusation, and called Sadler a “b*itch.”
In a statement to the website, the communications aide said she has “never used that word to describe anyone on the White House staff.”
“This smear by anonymous sources is not fit for print by any reputable news outlet,” Schlapp told the Beast. “The leakers should be more concerned about promoting the president’s agenda than trying to take down fellow members of the team.”
“Whether or not an epithet was used, for some inside the administration, is of secondary concern,” the report noted. “Far more important was the chaos that the episode illuminated about the state of the president’s communications staff.”
Shares