Why the Trump White House Is So Leaky

[EasyAce]

Trump thrives on drama, particularly drama he creates.
By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/447567/print

Historians will tell you that Adolf Hitler was not plagued by leakers and anonymous sources within his
government. Joseph Goebbels did not routinely race to the Frankfurter Zeitung to plant embarrassing or
inconvenient information about the boss. Stalin, likewise, didn’t rail against anonymous saboteurs within his
inner circle. Well, maybe he did now that I think about it, but he usually allayed such concerns by having
those people killed or sent to the Gulag. But he didn’t kill them for leaking to the press, because there was
no press in any meaningful sense to leak to.

In other words, for the people who seem to think that Donald Trump is an authoritarian tyrant, the fact that
his administration has been plagued by leaks and anonymous sources talking out of school should be oddly
reassuring.

At the same time, the roaring torrent of leaks from the White House is extremely dismaying for many Trump
supporters, starting with Trump himself. His decision to fire FBI director James Comey was reportedly driven
in part by his belief that Comey wasn’t doing more to hunt down leakers.

In some instances, Trump is right to be angry. The leaking of classified information, including transcripts of
his conversations with foreign leaders, is illegal and dangerous.

But in other cases, Trump’s anger is aimed at members of his own staff and probably his own family, who
use the media to undermine competitors in the administration. Senior adviser Steve Bannon uses his old
website, Breitbart.com, to throw brickbats at his enemies. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and
a sort of prince regent in the Trump administration, is widely believed to use MSNBC’s Morning Joe for
similar purposes.

The whole spectacle is actually pretty hilarious . . . [Trump] thrives on drama, particularly drama he creates.
He cares about, and monitors, media coverage like no president in American history. Trump likes to pit
subordinates against each other, which encourages staffers to be free agents. This dynamic is exacerbated
by his glandular zigzagging on policies and his failure to provide a consistent philosophical or policy agenda
beyond “Make the boss look good.” In short, he values loyalty above all else but offers few incentives for
it.