The Scaramucci avalanche continues unabated, and piggybacking off the latest stories — involving a planned Joe Paterno movie and plenty of continuing divorce drama — a Mooch associate named Arthur Schwartz launched a Sunday attack on the freshly ousted Reince Priebus. Just what this saga needs, right? And it is one righteous mess and a half.
Schwartz’s ties to Scaramucci are somewhat nebulous. He’s been described as a friend, but CNN’s Jake Tapper and other journalists refer to him as a Mooch publicist. Well, the beleaguered Priebus, who was rumored to be on the verge of being fired as chief of staff for months, left his position shortly after Scaramucci blew into the White House. This happened after Mooch accused Priebus of being a leaker and gave an infamous New Yorker interview to completely trash both Priebus and Steve Bannon.
And just because Priebus is gone doesn’t mean that he’s immune from continued onslaughts. Schwartz (via Twitter) took partial responsibility for trashing the “unemployed” Priebus, and he threatened to “start dropping oppo” about a possible “mistress” (despite Scaramucci asking the press to respect his own family’s privacy). Schwartz quickly deleted the tweet, but the Internet came through with a screencap.
https://twitter.com/joannesmoot/status/891671842045517824
Schwartz tweeted several more times about the incident, including how he (maybe?) apologized to Priebus, who (also maybe?) accepted and is “a better man than me.” He also feels “embarrassed” about doing “something stupid.”
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/891670502095413249
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/891674363027755008
However, Priebus sources tell Jake Tapper that he hasn’t spoken to Schwartz about this matter and definitely hasn’t accepted an apology.
Source close to @reince says he never spoke with @Schwartz and has neither heard nor accepted any apology from him. https://t.co/jzPkXn3rim
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 30, 2017
For what it’s worth, Schwartz also apologized for threatening to sue Tapper.
https://twitter.com/AmesCG/status/891671273608290305
https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/891696138520342528
Oh, and Schwartz has updated his Twitter profile to claim that he’s “Not Scaramucci’s publicist.” This dude is full of it.