JOHN MCCAIN/LEAKS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The dustup over a White House aide’s crass remark about Sen. John McCain’s health has once again inflamed the White House’s frustration with staffers who reveal the inner workings of the West Wing to reporters outside the building. Despite active efforts to flush out administration leakers — including machines used to detect unauthorized cell phones in the West Wing — President Donald Trump and his senior aides haven’t yet been able to stem the flow of damaging information. Deputy press secretary Raj Shah was in the daily communications meeting with about two dozen other officials last week when Kelly Sadler, a previously little-known aide, remarked that it didn’t matter that McCain, an 81-year-old, six-term Republican senator with brain cancer, opposed the administration’s pick to lead the CIA because ‘he’s dying anyway.’ Asked about the remark Monday [5-14-18], Shah reiterated that the White House’s internal frustration over the episode was that it was leaked. He focused on the leak itself rather than the content of the remarks in his exchange with reporters. But many of Shah’s colleagues inside the West Wing see the leaks of information as impossible to prevent. Dozens of senior officials speak to reporters on a daily basis, including, at times, Trump himself, and White House efforts to prevent leaks have fallen flat.”
-Kaitlan Collins, “In leaky West Wing, not even a phone ban can stop embarrassing disclosures,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 16, 2018 7:40 am