White House Leakers Try to Take Down Trump Aide

WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS director Kelly Sadler came under fire last week for making an inappropriate, insensitive and crass comment at a closed-door staff meeting on Thursday morning at the White House regarding U.S. Sen. John McCain.

McCain, an Arizona Republican who is suffering from brain cancer, released a statement opposing the nomination of Gina Haspel for the position of director of the CIA due to her involvement in the agency’s interrogation program.

During the White House communications meeting, aimed at planning a reaction strategy, Sadler reportedly joked in an off-the-cuff manner at the start of the meeting that it didn’t matter “because he’s dying anyway.”

The comment was leaked to the media. As soon as it was published, Sadler promptly called Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter, to personally apologize.

Smelling blood in the water, the legacy media capitalized on Sadler’s inappropriate comment by demanding her dismissal.

But no one bothered to question the source of the leak.

Sadler handles outreach for the Trump media surrogate team, and in my interaction with her, I have always found her to be very professional and highly competent.

In addition, she is extremely loyal to Trump, and she’s a true believer in his “America First” agenda.

She has no record or prior history of inflammatory remarks.

Most important, Sadler is incredibly effective at her job. She moves the needle for the president’s agenda. She gets results. Herein lies the problem: The never-Trumper White House vultures will swoop in and do anything it takes to discredit Trump loyalists — especially those who are effective.

According to Jonathan Easley of The Hill newspaper, who broke the story, the meeting in question was attended by 12 communications staffers.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not there, and Senior Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway arrived later. Primary Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah chaired the meeting.

This was a closed-door staff meeting. Sadler made the ill-advised and insensitive comment at the start. The meeting convened, and no one on the communications team brought it up or commented on it.

Until it came time to take her out.

But as we have seen in this White House, there are two teams: Trump’s team (dwindling) and the never-Trumper Republican-paid operative bunch unwittingly brought in by former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

This White House cabal loathes Trump and has nothing but disdain and contempt for the president, his family and his “America First” agenda.

As such, their mission seems bent on purging all Trump loyalists from both the White House and federal agencies.

Easley, who appeared on my radio show last Friday, says he got a phone call from the leaker about five minutes after the meeting concluded, tipping him off to Sadler’s remark.

Five minutes — just about the time it takes to get to a private place and launch a missile to destroy the career of an authentic Trump believer. This is the politics of personal destruction, and it only flows one way in the West Wing.

So, Sanders’ communications team has at least one person out of 11 who doesn’t like Sadler and who ran to the media to deliver what he or she thought was a kill shot.

Why? She’s a true believer. She’s effective. She’s competent. She’s not one of them.

She’s not part of the D.C. swamp operative network that roams the West Wing feigning support for the president while undermining him with strategically placed leaks at every turn. They leak to destroy.

This isn’t just an isolated case of somebody who has an ax to grind with Sadler. It’s rampant.

If you work in the White House or you are a Trump supporter in the federal government, these career Republican political operatives will potentially target you for purging.

I’ve witnessed enough of these to know the truth.

The Trump campaign brigade who came to Washington to serve this president and his agenda are under siege.

Not by the Democrats, not by the deep state — but by the conspirators trying to take this president down.

By John Fredericks For The Virginian-Pilot.