The author of a new book says that Kellyanne Conway is the “number one leaker” in the White House.
Ronald Kessler, the author of The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game, told CNN on Sunday that Conway, a senior aide to President Donald Trump, was behind some of the White House’s more egregious leaks. Kessler made the claim while discussing his new book, which is scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
“If you wonder why there are so many leaks out of the White House, one reason is Kellyanne is the number one leaker,” Kessler told Jake Tapper on State of the Union.
Kessler said Conway was behind the “most mean, cutting, and obviously untrue” things about former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and she “lit into” Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. The author also said aides told him they saw texts of Conway’s to media members that were “dissing her colleagues” and “leaking material.”
At one point, Kessler said Conway forgot she was on the record with a reporter while bashing Priebus.
Kessler also said that Trump will be remembered as “a great president” like Ronald Reagan. CNN reports that in the book, Kessler also says Kushner and Ivanka Trump pushed “the most disastrous and foolish decisions of Trump’s presidency” and have “no understanding of the basic fundamentals of how government works, how a campaign works, how politics works.”
Trump’s administration has been plagued with leaks from the beginning.
The administration has tried to ban White House staffers from bringing their personal phones to work in an attempt to stop leaks and last year a memo detailing the administration’s plan to crack down on leaks was leaked.
Last month, officials were upset that news of Trump being given a note to “not congratulate” Vladimir Putin on his election win was leaked to the press, a disclosure that could only have come from his upper tier of advisers.