Before President-elect Donald Trump has even been sworn into office, advisers in his orbit are already planning out a new strategy to crack down on leaks, reported NBC News on Wednesday.
"In an effort to tighten the lines of communication with Trump, the transition team is cutting back on the number of top White House staff members given the designation of 'assistant to the president,' which provides a staffer the privilege of walking into the Oval Office and bringing nonstaff guests in to meet with the president," reported Vaughn Hillyard, Jonathan Allen, Olympia Sonnier, and Jake Traylor.
This comes as Susie Wiles, the GOP strategist tapped to be Trump's next chief of staff, seeks to bring discipline to the presidential team. The idea behind the strategy appears to be to reduce the number of people who can meet Trump directly, insulating him as much as possible.
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As part of this new change, "Trump’s newly named legislative affairs director and political affairs director are among those not given the title; those positions typically have that designation," said the report. "Instead, the senior staff of the incoming White House is seeking to direct the flow of information to Trump, primarily through its deputy chiefs of staff, including his longtime trusted aides Stephen Miller, Taylor Budowich and Dan Scavino."
In Trump's previous term, stopping the trickle of leaks that gave media outlets embarrassing information about the president and the chaos behind the scenes became a major obsession. The White House went through staff reorganizations to try to punish and prevent leaks. Those leaks had been incredibly disruptive, revealing compromising information about figures like former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who had to be driven out of the administration early.
Trump's allies in Congress joined in the hunt too, with Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) even saying leakers would go to Hell, because "if you dislike the president that much and you're still working for him, you know, you don't have a soul."
