Epstein Secrets

19995 11 WIRETAP ith three screens in his White House bedroom, the president was his own best cable y Y curator. But for print he depended on Hope Hicks. Hicks, who had been his junior aide for most of the campaign and his spokesperson (although, as he would point out, he was really his own spokespers

the media that could not be positively spun. The day after his “reset” speech before the joint session of Congress presented a certain conundrum for Hicks. Here were the first generally good notices for the administration. But in the Post, the Times, and the New Yorker that day, there was also an ugly b

House was clearly Cohn’s professional lifeline—why else would he have come into the Trump administration? (Much of this was retailed to reporters by Sam Nunberg, the former Trump factotum who was now doing duty for Bannon. Nunberg was frank about his tactics: “I beat the shit out of Gary whenever possible.”)

n aggrieved, unyielding, and threatening president dominated the discussion, pushing HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020079 into line his daughter and her husband, Hicks, and Raffel. Kasowitz—the lawyer whose specific job was to keep Trump at arm’s length from Russian-related matters—was kept on hold on the phone for

s the ultimate facilitator of unmediated behavior. His impulses and thoughts—unedited, unreviewed, unchallenged—not only passed through him, but, via Hicks, traveled out into the world without any other White House arbitration. “The problem isn’t Twitter, it’s Hope,” observed one communication staffer.

go down another path ... and you can’t stop him. The guy is going to call his own plays. He’s Trump... .” And then another call came, this one from Sam Nunberg. He, too, was calling about Scaramucci, and his words caused something like stupefaction in Bannon: “No fucking, fucking way.” Bannon got off the ph

rly Hills— the then candidate polishing off a pint of Haagen-Dazs vanilla as he happily and idly opined about a range of topics while his aides, Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski, and Jared Kushner, went in and out of the room. Conversations with members of the campaign’s team continued through the Republica

fore the election, had helped avert a total Clinton landslide. “IT can be the most famous man in the world,” Trump told his on-again, off-again aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the campaign. “But do you want to be president?” Nunberg asked (a qualitatively different question than the usual existential candi