Ship sinking?
Now Hope Hicks is out.
Her resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee, telling the panel that in her job, she had occasionally been required to tell white lies but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Multiple White House aides said that Ms. Hicks’s departure was unrelated to her appearance before the committee. They said that she had told a small group of people in the days before the session that she had planned to leave her job.
But why would she leave such an awesome job working for such an awesome dude?
Most stories seem to be focusing on her “white lies” testimony, but I think the real issue was probably the embarrassment over the Rob Porter situation.
The sad thing is by all accounts she was the best at keeping Trump calm and keeping his lunacy at bay as much as possible.
You have an inside source? Cool. Can you tell us who it is?
No inside source. It was widely reported by reputable media sources (NYT, WP, others) that Hicks was dating Rob Porter, vouched for him, and drafted an official White House statement defending him without getting Trump’s approval. This caused Trump to be very unhappy with her.
Here’s one source on all that: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hope-hicks-the-quiet-one-in-trumps-white-house-suddenly-feels-the-glare/2018/02/09/738f0e74-0dba-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html
That situation seemed like a big deal at the time and I was speculating it may have played a major part in her departure. It seemed mostly forgotten in the initial stories. Later ones (such as the Yahoo one I quote below) have started to mention it. The “white lies” may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As for her being a calming influence on Trump, that’s also been widely reported:
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-longest-serving-aide-hope-hicks-resigns-white-house-shocker-000343780.html
Does this WH know the difference between white lies and non-white lies? Can anyone working for Trump tell where the line is drawn? I’m not even sure of that myself, and I’ve had ethics classes, and actually reflected a great deal on that topic over the years. In such an unreflective group as the Trump administration, I doubt they know the difference between a white lie and a big fat hairy dragon of a lie.
Oh, fair point, Skeletor – I’d managed to completely forget that Hicks was dating him. Christ. There’s so much hard-to-believe crap we can’t even hang on to it all!
No, that’s probably just me.
I agree with you, iknklast, that in general this White House probably doesn’t even realize how colossally dishonest they are.
I do find it amusing that everyone knows this White House is chock full of habitual liars, and yet many pounced on Hicks for admitting to “white lies”. At least that’s a partial admission of what everyone already knows is happening, right?
And I could be wrong about the Porter issue being a major factor. Maybe Trump was in fact simply outraged that someone had the gall to suggest that every statement ever made in his administration wasn’t the 100% truth.
@iknclast
I thought it is called “White House” because all lies told by them are white by definition.
#8: Very elegantly put.