'We will investigate': Brutal warning about hiring Trump officials

Companies that hire US President Donald Trump’s former officials face severe reputational damage, Forbes’ editor has said in an extraordinary warning.

Chief content officer and editor of wealth publication Forbes, Randall Lane, said businesses that choose to hire any of the outgoing president’s officials will have all future communications assumed to be lies.

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“Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists... and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet,” Randall wrote in the article titled ‘A Truth Reckoning: Why We’re Holding Those Who Lied For Trump Accountable’.

“Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.”

Lane said the attack on the US Capitol Building last Wednesday was the result of a years’ long misinformation campaign, and that Trump’s officials don’t deserve to be spared from the fall-out.

He said Trump’s press secretaries, who invented phrases like “alternative facts” - which has since been deemed the worst phrase of the decade - were at the top of the list of the leader’s facilitators.

However, Trump’s lawyers should also be approached with caution, Lane said.

“As American democracy rebounds, we need to return to a standard of truth when it comes to how the government communicates with the governed. The easiest way to do that, from where I sit, is to create repercussions for those who don’t follow the civic norms,” he said.

“Trump’s lawyers lie gleefully to the press and public, but those lies, magically, almost never made it into briefs and arguments – contempt, perjury and disbarment keep the professional standards high.”

Lane said while the approach may appear to be politically motivated, Forbes focus on wealth, business and growth means it has always been a central publication, and that this standard for truth needs to apply to any political party.

Forbes’ warning comes after several Trump officials resigned following the chaos last week, including Education Secretary Besty DeVos, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Melania Trump’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham.

According to Politico, Trump staffers are concerned about their employment prospects as the clock counts down to President-elect Joe Biden’s 20 January inauguration.

“The people who this is hardest on, aside from obviously the people in the Capitol and the police and the people who were hurt, are the people who have staked their reputations and their political, financial and career fortunes on defending the president and he’s just made it harder on us,” one lower-level Trump administration official said.

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