Looking back, it’s truly astonishing how much constant drama we went through as a nation throughout Donald Trump’s four-year term in the White House. It seemed as though every time you would turn around, something else would be “leaked,” the proverbial pot would be stirred, and then-President Trump would be making a scene about the whole ordeal in some series of unhinged tweets.
But according to one former Trump administration official, the source of the bulk majority of most of those dramatic leaks during Donald’s term was actually none other than Donald Trump himself — and his nasty habit was actually extremely detrimental not only to Trump’s presidential administration but to the entire country as a whole.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s new tell-all book, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, has been making waves in the media cycle for weeks now, as more and more excerpts of his book hit the public, chock full of even more shocking and disturbing revelations that we were prepared for.
According to one of those excerpts, Esper has alleged that now-former President Donald Trump was actually “the “biggest leaker of all,” and claims the situation was so bad, in fact, that “leaks were a chronic problem” throughout Trump’s presidency.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Business Insider reports on the bombshell excerpt revelation, with Esper writing in his book:
The individual motivations for the leaks ranged from advancing a preferred policy outcome to enhancing the leaker’s own role or credentials to currying favor with the president. It was a noxious behavior learned from the top. The president was the biggest leaker of all. It turned colleague against colleague, department against department, and it was generally bad for the administration and the country.”
The former Trump administration official goes on to claim that Trump’s constant, chronic leaks “damaged trust” and made people “far more reluctant to speak up and share their views.”
“Nobody wanted to see their name in the morning news, especially when the words were so often twisted, misinterpreted, and taken out of context,” Esper goes on to add in his Trump critical tell-all book. “In the Trump administration, this could get you blacklisted or fired.”
The irony of it all is the fact that Donald Trump regularly railed against these alleged “leakers” throughout his presidency, going so far as to pen a 2018 tweet that read, “Leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!”
All along, it was almost always him behind the leaks.
And in case you don’t trust Esper’s word alone, the former Trump-era Defense Secretary’s claims were actually corroborated by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in his own memoir. Last year, Christie claimed in his tell-all book that Donald Trump personally told the former NJ governor that he was responsible for leaking information to Axios about Trump’s decision to offer Christie the White House chief of staff position at the end of 2018.
When Christie confronted the then-president about the leak, Trump allegedly told him, “I did it myself. It was a great story, right? It was good for you and good for me. It was good.” Christie revealed that he chose to withdraw himself from consideration for the job in an effort to protect the then-president from the humiliation of Christie publicly turning down the offer of the position.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly denied allegations that he went by the aliases John Barron or John Miller when reaching out to reporters to promote his own personal business interests. However, Trump went on to later personally confirm that he did use those fake names to talk to the media during an appearance with late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
