May 14, 2018

Donald Trump Calls White House Leakers “Traitors” and Vows to “Find Out Who They Are”

But no apology for aide’s insult of John McCain.

President Donald Trump addresses the crowd during a Republican campaign rally last Thursday. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

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On Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump called the recent leaks at the White House an “over exaggeration” put out by the “fake news” media to make the administration look bad. He then made a familiar call:

Trump’s latest threat came amid backlash, after it was reported that White House special assistant Kelly Sadler had mocked Sen. John McCain, who is suffering from brain cancer, in a closed-door meeting last week. After McCain came out in opposition to CIA director nominee Gina Haspel, Sadler said that “it doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway,” the Hill reported, citing a source familiar with what was said. (The White House has opted not to apologize for Sadler’s comments.)

Over the weekend, Axios reported that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders berated her staff for the leaks, telling them: “I am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. And that’s just disgusting.” (Indeed, Sanders’ rant was promptly leaked.) On Sunday, an administration official explained to Axios’ Jonathan Swan why Team Trump is such a sieve: “The first is personal vendettas. And two is to make sure there’s an accurate record of what’s really going on in the White House.”

President Trump has long fumed over White House leaks and has sought to crack down on them. In March, he slammed “leaking, lying and corruption” at the FBI, State Department, and Justice Department. But, as BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner points out, the president sometimes leaks, too. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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