Former aide to George W Bush says White House leaks show 'unprecedented incompetence'

A top aide to former US president George W Bush has hit out at Donald Trump's administration, stating it has shown unprecedented 'incompetence'.

GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who has previously been critical of Trump, said the situation at the White House was unprecedented.

"None of this is normal," Schmidt said in an interview with The Washington Post.

"The incompetence, the sloppiness and the leaking is unprecedented."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has promised several times to deal with leaks coming from the White House, but thus far appears to have made little headway in doing so.

Evidence of this includes the resignation of Trump's national security adviser Mike Flynn just three weeks into the job following information leaks about his conversations with Russia's US ambassador.

Flynn announced his resignation on Monday (13 February) night after it was revealed he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about conversations he had with Russia's ambassador to the US.

Flynn spoke to Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition following the November US election and leading up to Trump's inauguration on 20 January 2017.

But he failed to tell Pence and the White House he had discussed sanctions that were being imposed by President Barack Obama in retaliation for Russia's attempts to influence the US election. Details of these conversations were leaked to the press.

Another leak describing President Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin led to an embarrassing revelation that the Republican had to pause the phone call to ask one of his aides about the nuclear treaty between the countries.

The White House has also been criticised for releasing conflicting information – suggesting either those within the administration are failing to communicate with one another or vital information is not being considered before being relayed to the public.

Following the announcement that an appeals court had upheld the decision to block Trump's travel ban for people from seven majority-Muslim countries, two different reports on the next step for the case – with one report stating Trump would not take it to the Supreme Court and another suggesting he was still considering the option.

It is not clear why this administration is afflicted with so many leaks, it appears, from so many different sources, but Spicer must step up and fulfill his much-repeated promise to tackle the problem if he wishes to prevent further information dumps.