The Washington Post is claiming that the White House, angry over a story about Press Secretary Sean Spicer confiscating staff phones in an effort to locate a leaker, placed a fake story smearing a POLITICO reporter in a friendly news outlet.
On Sunday morning, POLITICO‘s Alex Isenstadt and Annie Karni published an account of a “surprise” White House communications department meeting, where Spicer confiscated and then examined aides’ phones for evidence that they had been leaking inside information to the press.
According to the story, Spicer lectured staffers over his displeasure that private conversations and details of internal White House meetings were leaking to political reporters. He then told his team to drop their devices on a table for a “phone check” to “prove they had nothing to hide.”
Then, the Post reported, apparently angry that the story about checking for leakers had, subsequently, also leaked to the press, someone on Spicer’s team appeared to leak more information—on Isenstadt.
Late Sunday night, the Washington Examiner posted an account in its “Washington Whispers” section, accusing Isenstadt of laughing at the death of a Navy SEAL.
According to the Examiner (quoting an unidentified “informed official”) Spicer himself had tried to correct a story Isenstadt has written about a press office staffer getting emotional after a dressing down. Spicer told Isenstadt that the staffer wasn’t crying over an admonition, but rather over the death of a Navy SEAL during an operation that took place in Yemen in the early days of President Trump’s tenure.
The “informed official” told the Examiner that Isenstadt then began laughing, not over Spicer’s explanation but at the death of serviceman: “He started laughing about that SEAL.”
POLITICO‘s spokesman Brad Dayspring immediately denied the report as a “patently false characterization of the conversation.” POLITICO‘s editor, Carrie Budoff Brown, characterized the Examiner‘s story as a smear, directly from the White House itself.
On Twitter, Brown wrote, “Reporter writes story WH doesn’t like/disputes. WH anonymously plants false story about reporter.”
The White House press office has not responded to any questions about the matter, and did not answer when the Post asked whether Spicer himself would be investigating this particular leak.
Paul Bedard, the author of the Examiner‘s piece, says only that he thought POLITICO had a “good response” to his story’s claims.
If it is true that Spicer both took his employees phones and then leaked damaging, untrue information about a reporter to a friendly outlet, it seems to indicate the Press Secretary is having a difficult time managing the demands of his office.
Leaks happen in every White House—it’s often part of the West Wing’s communication strategy. But Spicer’s office has been leakier than most, and it’s clear that staffers within the administration are disregarding efforts to curb those leaks. Cracking down on staff so boldly, however, is unprecedented—as is leaking damaging personal information about a White House reporter, particularly if it’s untrue.
