A Donald Trump spokesperson may have torpedoed her career and revealed an internal page in the Trump attack handbook today.
It reads like a bad episode of a sitcom where a woman accidentally emails her boss instead of her coworker to complain about how she hates her boss. But in this case it is about political strategy in a presidential election. Trump's campaign just makes it seem like bad reality television.
Trump campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, who may soon be looking for a job, was on an email chain started by campaign adviser Michael Caputo. Politico reports that this email was sent to a researcher at the RNC asking him to “work up information on HRC/Whitewater as soon as possible. This is for immediate use and for the afternoon talking points process.”
Uh oh.
Well, Hicks didn't "reply all" as these horrible email stories usually go. Instead, she forwarded it to Politico reporter, Marc Caputo and not Michael Caputo. Whoopsie.
I mean, really, of all the mistakes to make, you send the playbook AND your response... to a reporter? Really? This is a middle school error, not one you would expect from a campaign spokesperson. But then again, this is the Trump campaign we are talking about. Trump is not known for hiring the most *qualified* folks.
So this email. Hicks was "warning" Caputo (Michael, not Marc), to not contact the RNC researcher, Michael Abboud, regarding Whitewater. But she did seem to imply that he would be leaving the RNC and joining the Trump campaign full-time.
Hicks said:
“He is still an employee of the RNC and we need to be sensitive to that until he comes over to our team full time."
RNC jumped into spin control almost immediately and released a statement calling his research team “the best in the business” but did not respond to any further questions.
Trump, who dismissed his John Miller alter-ego as "such old news" because it was 20 years ago seems to have no problem bringing up Whitewater from 1975. He also recently called Vince Foster's suicide "very fishy" and continually invokes Benghazi at every turn.
Trump has said:
“It’s the one thing with her, whether it’s Whitewater or whether it’s Vince or whether it’s Benghazi. It’s always a mess with Hillary.”
If Trump wants to go back 41 years into Hillary Clinton's background, fine. She has been vetted. But Trump has skeletons going back decades as well, and I guarantee they are substantially more explosive and despicable than anything his team will dig up.
Don't get me started on the tax returns. (Hillary has released 33 years worth.)
So far, the Clinton camp has been focused on the issues, which is commendable, but I know most of us are just waiting for the gloves to come off and the real campaigning to start. And if this is how campaign staff manage the day-to-day in-house communication, we've all got lots of gaffes and screw ups to look forward to from Trump employees.
My popcorn is ready.
