Unit2Sucks;842860797 said:
Are you genuinely surprised? He's a mole for the Mercers who is there to keep Trump honest. Well "honest" is obviously not the right word but take my words seriously not literally.
I think we'll ultimately find out that all of the leaks were from the white house at the direction of loyalists to Reince, Bannon or Kushner. Perhaps Pence got a few good leaks in too, but I think it's more likely that he's playing the long game and waiting for everyone else to die from friendly fire.
The whole setup to start the administration kind of made sense initially but always seemed a bit suspicious, Bannon had not been in Washington at all but had credibility obviously as the hardest of the hardcore among the Trump loyalists, and Preibus was there because even though he was a swamp creature he did have many connections throughout DC and the GOP structure at his disposal to dispense with Trump's agenda, and Trump has of course preferred to keep his business empire all in the family, so Kushner and Ivanka are there despite having no defined roles in the White House other than "advisors." The big brouhaha early-on seemed to be Bannon vs. Kushner/Preibus, again not surprising, then Preibus was targeted as the leaker by Roger Stone and other Trump backers, which again was not a huge surprise, but now the war seems to be McMaster vs. Bannon, which is fascinating yet troubling because if McMaster can get the upper hand on Bannon and throw him out, then he will have the White House under total control and maybe steer Trump in a totally different direction. So at this point I am not terribly disappointed by how things have gone, because I did kind of expect a messy period to start with, Gorsuch notwithstanding, but Bannon undermining Trump means that there may be more afoot than just a power play by McMaster. Other theories: Pence is blowing the whole thing up masterfully, Kusher may be rebelling against his father-in-law, plus Ivanka may be involved somehow in wanting to end all this early, just for the sake of everyone involved.
No matter how this all shakes out, this White House is supremely bewildering, entertaining, fascinating and incredible, all at the same time. It will make an awesome historical miniseries one day.
