One high-profile White House official may need to start looking for a new job with the arrival of new press secretary Katie Zacharia.
According to the Daily Mail, the press secretary hire has put one official’s “head on the chopping block” and stoked fears of a post-midterm purge among uncomfortable staffers who watched President Donald Trump act alone with the hire.
The Mail reported that when Trump went around Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to pick Zacharia to replace Karoline Leavitt, the “vetting was so thin” that he didn’t know “she was a protégé of Corey Lewandowski,” the longtime adviser to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who left the department after Trump fired the controversial Noem in March.
Zacharia joined DHS as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs in February and resigned about six weeks later. Sources told the Mail she was handpicked by Lewandowski “to be the department’s television voice,” a patronage that became a liability after Noem’s firing. Her name landed on “an unofficial blacklist of more than two dozen Noem loyalists” circulating inside the department, the Mail reported.
Lauren Bis, who was elevated to assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS to replace Tricia McLaughlin, helped push Zacharia out and sidelined her from the television role, a source close to the White House told the Mail. DHS insiders labeled Zacharia a “Corey person,” which she denied.
Bis has since moved to the White House press shop, the Mail reported, meaning she would now report to the woman she is accused of forcing out.
“It would be wise for Lauren to begin looking for a new job given their history,” the source close to the White House told the Mail.
The surprise hire has also “unnerved” other staff, the Mail reported. One senior Trump official said many in the West Wing fear for their jobs after the midterms, and some suspect the president “may carry out a purge.” The official said the hiring of Zacharia, forced through without the usual White House advisers, is being read as a sign Trump is willing to make sweeping changes on his own.
“Trump wanted a woman from the start, someone who fit the central casting mold,” another source told the paper. “Katie makes sense. DHS inner politics did not allow her to do the front facing role she thought she signed up for. Now she can.”
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