President Donald Trump's incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci appeared to soften somewhat his earlier pledge to purge his department in an attempt to get rid of possible leakers, saying he does not plan to aggressively fire people right away, The Hill reported on Wednesday.
However, he did not rule out mass firings, saying that once he is installed in his position he would "probably restructure" the communications department, and "If the leaks continue, then I've got to let everybody go."
Trump has complained about continual leaks, and Scaramucci said he thinks that some of them are coming from the communications office.
The former hedge fund manager had earlier spurred talk of a large shake-up when he said he had “a thousand percent" permission from Trump to fire everyone in his office to stop leaks and told reporters, “I’m going to fire everybody, that’s how I’m going to do it.”
In fact, those rumors apparently caused White House press aide Michael Short to resign, after he suffered through several hours of conflicting speculation about whether he was going to be fired or not, according to Axios.
Short was among those working for the president who came from the Republican National Committee, so the move was a blow to Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who now has one less loyalist in the White House.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer had already resigned his position as Scaramucci’s hiring was announced.
Scaramucci is scheduled to officially begin his new job in mid-August.
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