'Ready, shoot, aim': President Trump's loyalty tests cause hiring headaches
By Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey April 29 at 6:55 PM
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then the star of President Trump’s early Cabinet, was assembling his staff and picked Sarah Isgur Flores as his top spokeswoman.
There was just one problem: She had criticized Trump, repeatedly, during the 2016 Republican primaries. Flores’s prospects for a Justice Department job stalled, and Trump’s advisers knew there was only one way Sessions would be able to hire her: If she kowtowed to Trump.
So she paid her respects to the president in the Oval Office — a cordial visit during which she told the president she was on board with his agenda and would be honored to serve him, according to several people with knowledge of the meeting.
The early 2017 episode, which has not previously been reported, underscores the extent to which Trump demands loyalty in vetting administration officials — even well-qualified Republicans like Flores seeking jobs on the personal staffs of Cabinet secretaries, who historically have had considerable leeway to do their own hiring.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ready-shoot-aim-president-trumps-loyalty-tests-cause-hiring-headaches/2018/04/29/7756ec9c-4a33-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html