Politico is reporting this morning that there’s a new culture of paranoia that’s sweeping the White House that is borne out of the leaks against the administration this year:
POLITICO – A culture of paranoia is consuming the Trump administration, with staffers increasingly preoccupied with perceived enemies—inside their own government.
In interviews, nearly a dozen White House aides and federal agency staffers described a litany of suspicions: that rival factions in the administration are trying to embarrass them, that civil servants opposed to President Donald Trump are trying to undermine him, and even that a “deep state” of career military and intelligence officials is out to destroy them.
Aides are going to great lengths to protect themselves. They’re turning off work-issued smartphones and putting them in drawers when they arrive home from work out of fear that they could be used to eavesdrop. They’re staying mum in meetings out of concern that their comments could be leaked to the press by foes.
Many are using encrypted apps that automatically delete messages once they’ve been read, or are leaving their personal cell phones at home in case their bosses initiate phone checks of the sort that press secretary Sean Spicer deployed last month to identify leakers on his team.
It’s an environment of fear that has hamstrung the routine functioning of the executive branch. Senior advisers are spending much of their time trying to protect turf, key positions have remained vacant due to a reluctance to hire people deemed insufficiently loyal, and Trump’s ambitious agenda has been eclipsed by headlines surrounding his unproven claim that former President Barack Obama tapped his phone lines.
One senior administration aide, who like most others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the degree of suspicion had created a toxicity that was unsustainable.
“People are scared,” he said, adding that the Trump White House had become “a pretty hostile environment to work in.”
A White House official rejected the notion that there’s a culture of paranoia.
Spicer on Tuesday emphasized that cell phone checks are not White House policy, and said that neither he nor others are still conducting them. “The only incident in which that occurred was limited to the one involving myself,” he said.
I know there’s a healthy amount of fake news going around these days when it comes to Trump, especially from many mainstream media outlets. But given how Spicer did a cellphone check just a couple weeks ago of White House staffers and even admits it, I’m inclined to believe this report is true.
But hey, a healthy paranoia isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when you know there are Obama administration holdovers who are definitely trying to damage Trump with leaks to the media.