In a span of 24 hours, the White House was rocked on Friday by sudden resignations as Press Secretary Sean Spicer quit over the appointment of Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier, as communications director. Hours earlier, President Donald Trump’s legal team shrunk by two after Mark Corallo, the spokesman of his legal team, resigned, while reports indicate Marc Kasowitz, the personal lawyer of the billionaire, was fired.
One of the first acts of Scaramucci as communications director was to announce the promotion of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as press secretary from deputy press secretary.
While both Trump and Scaramucci praised the outgoing press secretary, Spicer actually left with a heavy heart.
Double function
Prior to his resignation, Spicer functioned both as press secretary and communications director. He took over the role vacated by Mike Dubke who quit in early June, Reuters reported. After Trump decided to hire Scaramucci, he informed Spicer of the new appointment. It did not sit well with the 45-year-old Spicer who told the president he did not want to remain in the White House.
Trump, who saw Scaramucci on TV, saw in the financier a way to make the unpopular president “a top TV surrogate.” He wanted Spicer to keep his job since the power would still remain with the press secretary, while the communication director’s position is a ceremonial title with no responsibility.
Besides the hiring of Scaramucci, Spicer disliked Trump’s recent interview with The New York Times that was published on Wednesday. Spicer was not informed about the interview, and he believes the result was a disaster, The New York Post reported. Huckabee Sanders read a statement of Trump that stated the president was grateful for the work done by Spicer on behalf of his administration and the American people.
Scaramucci, in turn, called the just resigned-press secretary as a true American patriot. Spicer lasted six months on the job, but his resignation, in turn, made comedian Melissa McCarthy – known for her impersonation of the press secretary – jobless for now.
Lawyers say goodbye too
Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Corallo resigned, CBS News reported.
The reason behind the resignation of Corallo – a Republican operative who was part of the House committee that invested then-President Bill Clinton in the 1990s – is unknown. He used to be in charge of the president’s defense in the ongoing Russia probe.
Kasowitz, the longtime personal lawyer of Trump, had been representing the real estate billionaire since the early 2000s. Some of the prominent Trump lawsuits he handled were the university fraud cases. Kasowitz recently threatened an ex-PR professional when he wrote “F*** you” in an email. The lawyer was angry at the PR practitioner’s recommendation that Kasowitz should resign. It seems the former was right because Trump reportedly just told his longtime lawyer, “You’re fired.”
