The White House has rescinded a high profile job offer to deep-pocketed financier Anthony Scaramucci, according to a report.
Chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Stephen Bannon told the SkyBridge Capital founder on Wednesday that he won’t be tapped to lead the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs, The New York Times reported.
The job was modeled after the one President Obama’s closest adviser, Valerie Jarrett, held for the last eight years.
The news comes weeks after Scaramucci sold his fund of hedge funds to China’s HNA Capital, though the deal is reportedly not finalized.
It’s not known precisely why the offer was yanked, but the sale of Scaramucci’s firm to the foreign company created ethics issues that could take months to clear up. Also, HNA may have ties to China’s Communist government.
“This does not seem to me to be a clear disqualifying factor,” Richard W. Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer and a critic of President Trump, told The Times.
“Another possibility is they decided not to keep him for a political reason and cited an ethics conflict as a cover,” he added.
Scaramucci may be up for another administration posting or even an ambassadorship.
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