When Donald Trump installed former Fox co-president Bill Shine as deputy chief of staff in charge of communications (allegedly at the recommendation of Sean Hannity), taxpayers got someone who was literally still on the Fox News payroll at the same time.
From Jane Mayer’s must-read article in The New Yorker:
With Shine, the Fox and White House payrolls actually do overlap. The Hollywood Reporter obtained financial-disclosure forms revealing that Fox has been paying Shine millions of dollars since he joined the Administration. Last year, he collected the first half of a seven-million-dollar bonus that he was owed after resigning from Fox; this year, he will collect the remainder. That sum is in addition to an $8.4-million severance payment that he received upon leaving the network. In December, four Democratic senators sent a letter to the White House counsel’s office, demanding proof that Fox’s payments to Shine don’t violate federal ethics and conflict-of-interest statutes.
So when Shine banned CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins from a White House press event and canceled National Security Adviser John Bolton’s appearance on CNN as a response to CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s “bad behavior,” he wasn’t just helping out his new boss but also his old one.
The only good news for those of us paying Shine’s salary who think that a guy in his position shouldn’t be playing media favorites? Trump is already displeased with him.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
