Someone is anonymously paying to spruce up Trump adviser Steve Bannon's image

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

last updated 17 November 2016

On Wednesday, a publicist named Maria Sliwa sent out two emails to reporters offering interviews with positive character witnesses for Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News chairman and incoming senior adviser to Donald Trump. Bannon's appointment has been met with disappointment and disgust, given his ties to white nationalism and accusations of anti-Semitism, and so an attempt at a public makeover makes sense. But "it is unusual for publicists to refuse to say who they work for," says Tim Molloy at The Wrap, and Sliwa refused to answer when asked, saying only, "I'm not working for Bannon" but "I have a client who is."

The two sources that Sliwa proffered were a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who could speak to Bannon's time in the U.S. Navy and a Breitbart News employee. Sliwa has promoted Breitbart News, a graphic novel version of the anti-Clinton book Clinton Cash, and the work of the Government Accountability Institute, an organization founded by that book's author, Peter Schweitzer, and Bannon. When Malloy pointed out that she had done some work for Breitbart, he says, Sliwa replied "Oh God, please no," and hung up.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.