Huckabee Sanders: White House leakers 'should be fired'
By ELI OKUN 05/16/2018 08:45 AM EDT
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that leakers “should be fired” amid the ongoing controversy over an aide’s joke about Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) death.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to work for the president and to be part of his administration. And anybody who betrays that I think is a total and complete coward and they should be fired,” Sanders said on Fox. “We’ve fired people over leaking before.”
The White House has continually doubled down on its perspective that the leaking of aide Kelly Sadler’s comments — “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway” — was a graver offense than the remarks themselves.
Sanders echoed President Donald Trump, who tweeted that leakers were “traitors and cowards” even as he called the leaks exaggerated, and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who said this week that she expected personnel changes as a result.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/16/white-house-leaks-sarah-huckabee-sanders-591010
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Well, what I mean is that if you work in the White House, your motives have alot to do with leaking. The VAST majority of leaking in ANY White House is an attempt to do one of two things, undermine a policy, or undermine a person. Bill Clinton had this problem in droves in that small amounts of information would "leak" out and it's primary affect was to influence public opinion BEFORE policies could be worked out and announced. Obama and the whole ACA negotiations (which were very drawn out, which was one of many problems) suffered massively from this problem. People leaked certain information out before anything close to all negotiations were complete and a comprehensive plan could be presented. TPP was kept secret in its negotiations in part because of exactly this issue. These are the kinds of leaks that really deserve dismissal as the method of addressing them. (Unless they are basically "accidental"
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That said, there's two other kinds of leaks. #1 is when they are intentional. i.e. leaks are "authorized" so that trial balloons can be put out there to gauge public reaction. Also, occasionally they are to undermine the opposite party, especially say what the Senate is pushing in private versus the public when a democrat is president. There is not going to be any firing over these.
The other kind is when there is something borderline illegal going on. That's really more "whistle blowing" than leaking but it is roughly the same thing. And it is problematic because it is unfortunately often the only way to shine the light of day on things that are festering BECAUSE they can be hidden from view. Leaders suffer these BECAUSE they don't create an environment where people feel they can act any other way. That needs to be addressed.
