John F. Kelly, as White House chief of staff, presented himself as the man leading a charge of “country first, president second.” The attorney general suggested administering lie-detector tests to the small group of people with access to transcripts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders. And President Trump sought a list of “enemies” working in the White House communications shop. Those are some of the portraits of the Trump White House sprinkled throughout “Team of Vipers,” an inside account of working there written by Cliff Sims, a former communications staff member and Trump loyalist who worked on the campaign. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on the book. “It’s impossible to deny how absolutely out of control the White House staff — again, myself included — was at times,” Mr. Sims writes.

Source: New York Times January 21, 2019 00:46 UTC