White House Chaos
Philip Elliott
7:16 AM EST
... the White House has fallen back on its reality-show ways, distracted by the internecine drama of senior aides who spend their days mixing government business with jockeying for position and favor with the boss. No one has felt the pressure more than White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, who was christened as the man "in charge" by the President mere weeks ago yet has been trailed ever since by snipers regarding his aptitude and longevity for the job. Running the White House in a normal environment can be overwhelming. But the affable 44-year-old routinely finds himself rushing down the hallway from his office to intercept unscheduled visitors to the Oval Office. He had to break up one impromptu meeting of Trump and his Homeland Security adviser after an aide asked the chief if there had been a change to the schedule.
Little takes place in the White House these days without a complication or contradiction. Take the dismissal of Flynn. As senior aides prepared to announce his departure as a resignation, counselor Kellyanne Conway, who often boasts of her direct access to Trump, went on television to declare that Flynn had "the full confidence of the President." Then as officials quickly tried to correct that statement, Priebus received notice on his phone that a release had misspelled the name of Colombia, a South American ally whom Trump had called earlier in the evening. At roughly the same time, others close to Trump were telling Breitbart News, the conservative website once run by Trump strategist Steve Bannon, that aides were drawing up a list of replacements for Priebus. (Bannon denounced the story. "This guy is doing an amazing job," he tells TIME of Priebus. "I'm proud to call him a partner."
The next day, Conway was on Twitter fending off reports of her own demise--"Uninformed chatter doesn't matter"--just hours before the Office of Government Ethics suggested that the White House discipline her for likely breaking government rules when she endorsed Ivanka Trump's fashion line on live television.
The result of all the melodrama is a sense of constant chaos for a watchful nation and a crippling anxiety for White House officials. Some aides now refuse to communicate by email, given that federal law requires such messages to be archived for historians and investigators. Many have taken to using encrypted apps to get around the investigations Trump has ordered to clamp down on leaks. Others are skittish about even picking up the phone, assuming someone is always listening or monitoring calls. "It's dysfunctional, as far as national security is concerned," says Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican. "Who's in charge? Who's making policy? Who's making decisions? I don't know if anyone outside of the White House that knows" ...
http://time.com/4672974/donald-trump-white-house-chaos/
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