It’s not exactly a secret that Donald Trump and his team have changed their minds about the value of leaks. In 2016, when Russia stole Democratic materials and shared them with WikiLeaks, Trump World couldn’t be more pleased with leaks. In 2017, with much of the West Wing leaking like a sieve for months, the president and his allies are far less impressed.
But just how far is Team Trump prepared to go to address the problem? Kellyanne Conway gave an interesting answer the other day to a provocative question.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said Friday that the White House may have staff members take a lie detector test to determine who is leaking sensitive national security information.
“Well they may — they may not. There are many different ways to discover who is leaking,” Mrs. Conway said on Fox News.
She added that “it’s easier to figure out who’s leaking than the leakers may realize.”
Let’s note for context that two weeks ago, Kellyanne Conway appeared on the same program and said asking prospective White House employees to comply with Office of Government Ethics rules has left many of them “completely demoralized.”
If routine ethics paperwork has left members of the president’s team “completely demoralized,” one wonders how those same staffers might respond to lie-detector tests.
But even putting that aside, the irony here is hard to overlook. Conway has earned a reputation for someone who lies routinely and brazenly, and Donald Trump has broken new ground in the area of presidential dishonesty, to the point that his truth allergy has led to awkward questions about his tenuous relationship with reality. A variety of other high-profile members of Team Trump — Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, et al — have been caught delivering an embarrassing number of whoppers. If any group of people on the planet should want to steer clear of even mentioning lie-detector tests, it’s Trump and his senior aides.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
