President Trump’s new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, unleashed a fiery tweet on Wednesday evening that seemed to imply that his financial disclosures were leaked by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
There’s just one rather large problem: there was no leak.
It all started from a Politico report about Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms, which prompted Scaramucci to fire off a since-deleted tweet that read, “In light of the leak of my financial disclosure info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.”
But there couldn’t have been a leak because Scaramucci’s financial disclosures were already available to the public, as the author of the Politico report, Lorraine Woellert, explained on Twitter:
In other words, all Woellert had to do was request the form since Scaramucci had to file the forms as part of his employment with the Export-Import Bank prior to taking the communications director position. This was not a leak by any stretch of the imagination.
Scaramucci tried to save face with this:
Scaramucci also denounced the leaks against Trump on CNN’s New Day:
“It’s absolutely, completely and totally reprehensible,” he said. “And as you know from the Italian expression: The fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don’t stink, and that’s me and the President.”
“I don’t like the activity going on in the White House,” Scaramucci added. “I don’t like what they’re doing to my friend. I don’t like what they’re doing to the President of the United States or their fellow colleagues in the West Wing.”
This episode is reflective of the ongoing feud between Scaramucci and Priebus, adding to the recent dysfunction within the Trump administration.