Trump ally ousted from administration after messy email fight goes public
Por Daniel Lippman — POLITICO – TOP Stories
A controversial State Department political appointee embroiled in an email fight with the deputy secretary of state was fired from his role as a special envoy just hours after POLITICO published a story recounting the clash.
A U.S. official on Thursday confirmed that Paolo Zampolli was fired, saying that his status “as an envoy has been terminated and he is no longer a government employee.”
When asked to comment on his firing, Zampolli said in a statement: “Serving [President Donald Trump] and the United States has been the greatest honor of my life. I am deeply grateful to President Trump, Secretary Rubio and the entire team.”
“Now it is time for the next chapter – back to business, building relationships and closing deals,” he added.
He said that Trump had told him: “Why do you want to work in government when you can close all these deals?”
In a brief phone interview, he said he had “absolute zero surprise” that he got fired after the article.
Zampolli, a personal friend of Trump, was fired hours after POLITICO Thursday published a story recounting the months-long feud he had over email with Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. The two officials quarreled over authority and chains of command, with Landau attempting to keep Zampolli focused on his role as a cultural envoy.
The fight was notable not only because of the personal attacks and accusations of defamation, but also because more than a dozen government officials were included on some of the email chains, including Dan Scavino, the presidential personnel director. Zampolli went on the record for two lengthy interviews with POLITICO in which he blasted Landau and said that he had “been attacking me from Day 1” and “everything I did, he tried to destroy it.”
In the 1990s, Zampolli worked as a modeling agent who represented Melania Trump and introduced her to Trump. Zampolli was named to the board of the Kennedy Center during the first Trump administration and the president appointed him to be the U.S. special representative for global partnerships in his second administration. In that role, Zampolli was supposed to represent the United States at global cultural events and form cultural partnerships around the world.
But, according to emails obtained by POLITICO, Zampolli strayed far from his remit and met with foreign officials to discuss non-cultural matters.
At one point in June, Zampolli accused Landau over email — with more than a dozen other officials on the email chain — of being the source of a leak of a story in The New York Times. Although Zampolli didn’t specify the story, his details correspond with a Times story from March reporting that Zampolli asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport Amanda Ungaro, the mother of his son, to Brazil to help him gain custody of him. Zampolli denied that he asked ICE to detain her.
Landau, however, denied he leaked to the Times, responding via email: “Your threats and accusations are getting more and more bizarre, defamatory, and inappropriate for broad dissemination on email. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Landau, who was Zampolli’s direct supervisor until July, ordered him to stop sending “unhinged emails until I receive further directions from the White House on how to proceed.”
Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories
