Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Omarosa Should Face Charges
On Sunday morning, former White House official and reality star Omarosa dropped a bombshell:
This is crazy: Omarosa secretly recorded Chief of Staff John Kelly IN THE SITUATION ROOM pic.twitter.com/08AWjEpqJb
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) August 12, 2018
I have a lot of questions about this recording, and here they are, in no particular order:
- What was she even doing in the Situation Room?
- Does anyone know what her job actually was? (This is a great profile on her time in the White House)
- This is illegal, right? There is no way this is not illegal.
- Why would she admit to breaking federal law on Meet the Press in order to sell copies of her book?
- How did she have a recording device in the room?
- If she used a cell phone, do we know if foreign governments or organizations were able to listen in as well?
- Who is in charge of security for the Situation Room? Will they face consequences for this breach?
- Is there any way to verify this was indeed recorded in the Situation Room?
- Will everyone (justifiably) upset about the casual disregard Hillary Clinton showed for security with her email server demand an inquiry?
This is an incredibly troubling sign from a White House marked by disarray and disorganization. It’s been hoped that despite the constant upheaval, there are officials within the military and security establishment upholding standards to ensure something like this incident never takes place. This isn’t a reality show, and there were supposed to be individuals (even if they aren’t the President and his staff) who were responsible for maintaining a level of professionalism required of the executive branch.
A very clear message needs to be sent in response to this announcement: Heads should roll among those responsible for staffing and security the White House and Situation Room, and charges should be filed against Omarosa. The White House isn’t a reality show, and you don’t get to flagrantly break federal law in order to sell a few more copies of a book.
Published in Politics
This is truly bizarre. Although I don’t know if the administration is still disorganized, someone screwed up and heads should roll. I heard last week was a slow news week for some; I guess this one is starting out differently!
The best people…
How does anyone know for certain that this conversation took place in the Situation Room?
Reportage in The Washington Examiner, for instance, provides no attribution and uses what I’d characterize as the passive voice in its writeup: “The recorded conversation took place in the White House Situation Room…”
For now, I can only assume that Omarosa is the person, and the sole source, detailing the location as being the Situation Room; happy to be corrected if anyone else has come forward, speaking authoritatively if not for attribution, to corroborate Omarosa’s assertion.
Otherwise, for all we know the conversation may have been conducted in a spare room in the Old Executive Office Building, for example, or even in one of the guardhouses by the back driveway to the White House while other staffers were retrieving Omarosa’s personal effects for her since her Entry Card had been confiscated.
That’s a good point. Omarosa hasn’t exactly established a reputation for truth telling has she?
He real crime here is how badly the White House is being mismanaged.
Seriously, everything about the situation indicates a collosal management failure. You’d almost think the President has no idea what he’s doing. You’d almost think the man was wholly unfit for the job.
If She and Trump where the only 2 people present, then recording in the situation room wouldn’t be any worse than recording anywhere else in the white house. However, given the nature of that room I doubt that’s the case – and given the seriousness of that room – I am sure that multiple witnesses will have notes and very detailed memories of the conversations. Verifying the location and dates should not be difficult.
And then charge her, and the publishers? Did they knowingly commission an idiot to commit crimes? That shouldnt be hard to figure out – if Omarossa started discussions with the publisher, before the recording was made – then they should be on the hook too.
You’d almost think some see any post brushing up against Trump as an excuse for hyperbolic attacks on the man, regardless of the subject. #1 in the O/P is pretty clearly the correct response, but Trump bringing her into the White House is decidedly different from assuming that he personnally gave her access to the Situation Room (assuming she’s even telling the truth, which I doubt).
Yeah, because we wouldn’t want to make the mistake of pinning the crime on the person who actually committed the crime.
I’m sure somewhere along the way this woman swore an oath or signed her name to forms acknowledging that knowingly doing what she apparently did was a crime. Any president has to have some degree of confidence that the people around him are operating in good faith. It seems to me that if he adopts an atmosphere of suspicion and a bunker mentality, that will be counterproductive. It’s certainly valid to criticize hiring this reality show ditz in the first place. I imagine the administration thinking was that her black skin would offer an air of diversity to the staff. This episode just goes to show what attempts at artificially contrived diversity are likely to produce.
My suspicion is that since Obama was such an object of wonderment, no one would have dared do what this woman did. They would have been attacked by sycophants on the left, and if it got any press at all, it would have been to destroy her personally and professionally. Instead, this woman gets book deals and adoring press coverage. Seems like quite the incentive to me. What’s the downside for her; a few obscure, grumbling Trump supporters?
If the man asks for a second scoop of ice cream, that makes him unfit for office…
Trump has not one iota clue of how to be president – that’s why he won. Everyone that had even a modicum of government experience or traditional political instinct got run over by the Trump bandwagon.
The sad thing is – that the demoncrats have set the bar so low – that as long as there isnt a nuclear war or a stock market crash and great depression – he can claim to have had a successful presidency. No matter what happens – it wont be as bad as the fear mongers cried about.
This is a good test case for people I think. Omarosa’s hire was clearly at the Presidents behest. I doubt anyone else in the administration was clamoring for a reality show contestant to be hired. Her presence there and the actions that resulted from it are entirely Trumps fault. Will any of his fans hold him to blame for that? Let’s see.
It’s a test in another sense–whether one requires a factual basis for blaming this particular episode on Trump and for another round of Trump attacks. The fact that her link to the White House is entirely through Trump is not a good thing, but it only gets one so far in laying the O/P discussion directly at his door. We don’t even know for sure that it happened, unless I’m missing something, nor do we know the consequences if it did.
Hire a reality show star, get a person who creates dramatic cliffhangers for the next episode.
If nothing else, this would seem to be a violation of protocol and/or her security clearance, to where the FBI or Secret Service could be brought in to investigate the violation of White House rules. But this is what happens when you don’t take the job as seriously as you should, and hire someone because they were on your TV show and argued on TV in your behalf during the election.
I don’t see why you would blame anyone other than Omarosa for recording in the situation room… they are paying the price for allowing her in it.
Clearly Trump didn’t match people for the jobs he needed done… and he seems to be improving.
Lesson learned, and she should be prosecuted.
Please lay out for me how Omarosa came to be in the White House that doesn’t involve the President. This sort of nonsense is why I keep coming back to the cult of personality explaination.
No, there are rules regarding unauthorized devices in rooms where classified information is processed.
That being said, there is only reportage regarding the location – no other evidence yet.
Sounds to me like she was being let off easy (the firing by John Kelly) and she chooses to go another way.
If Trump gets credit for good hires like Mattis and DeVos, then he should also get blamed for the bad hires. Anything else is just rank cult of personality.
Sure – she is terrible. I also believe that the President gets to choose who works for him. He chose her, suffered the chaos in his White House team then had the good sense to hire John Kelly. Who politely fired Omarosa.
I don’t think that’s the question here. No president is truly responsible for everything done by a “bad hire.” As an aside, the impact of your examples is totally different. In a world where Trump’s every move was not open to castigation, Omarosa (thus far) would be a blip considering what we know.
Did you read what I wrote? What about “The fact that her link to the White House is entirely through Trump is not a good thing” is unclear?
Pretty clear that this is a result of Trump’s amateurishness in leadership (ability to prioritize, inquisitiveness, and disposition to command), as others have noted. He never displayed much before and so naturally attracted and picked a number of bad staff members. Fortunately many have been fired—like Bannon, Scaramucci, and Omorosa.
But one does wonder if more skeletons will come out and whether they will hurt Trump and the GOP. It is the price one pays when you pick a candidate like Trump and his term, costs and benefits, is not over yet. If Omorosa could sneak in recording devices could someone else have before this recent revelation? That would be quite a cost.
If the situation room is used for any classified work then having any recording device in there without authorization is criminal.
But we know how the powers that be feel about classified information and its safeguard. The rules only apply to the little people.
It’s not definitive, but this is part of the reason I don’t entirely buy her story. If Kelly was in the process of firing her, it wouldn’t have to be done in a secure room, and, if it was, it’s highly unlikely she would have been permitted to have a phone. But assuming that it did happen, she should have bigger problems than being fired.
The process is designed to stop an outsider from obtaining and maintaining access. It does poorly against an insider threat. Omarosa, if she actually recorded something inside a SCIF, was an insider threat.
Yes. Still, there are strict rules and procedures against phones (or any recording devices), short of pat downs. I still have my doubts as to where this took place.
Many products and systems are designed to prevent undesired consequences but fail sometimes. Particularly when used by those with little experience of how said products or systems are designed and have little interest in learning about them. Trump fits that bill pretty well and gets to my point that Trump’s poor acumen may have resulted in other security breaches related to recording of information by poor staff picks, who are or became/become insider threats.
Omorosa’s example may also encourage future attempts at similar behavior, which is another cost as well.
With respect, you might consider an alternate take; that the penalties for spying/leaking/general betrayal of government secrets have been serially tested since the cold war and no one believes there will be consequences any more.
I have no idea when the last traitor was shot. Or imprisoned for any length of time. Or lost pension or the ability to exist in polite society. But a long time for each.
Now you get a book deal.
Omarosa should rot in prison. She had trust, and violated it.
Perhaps Trump relies on others to recommend people, but they turn out to be jerks. The fact he fires them shows he knows what he’s doing. OTOH, he should vet these people with as much vigor as he’s vetting the illegals crossing the border . . .