STEPHANIE WINSTON WOLKOFF, MONSTER:

CNN today featured former Melania Trump aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff airing a secret recording of the First Lady making a profane remark about Christmas decorations, and complaining about the way the media were treating her about migrant children at the border. I’m not going to link to the clip, because it is repulsive. I’m not talking about what Melania Trump said — though that is certainly obnoxious — but about the fact that this Wolkoff cretin has betrayed a friend so horribly. That, and the fact that CNN is party to this betrayal.

What is the point of this? What national security issue was at stake, such that violating someone’s privacy and expectation of confidentiality is rewarded? If you’re mad at Melania Trump for what she said, okay, but you ought to be furious that someone betrays the confidence of a friend and employer (and for such a trivial reason!), and that a major news network went along with it.

You don’t like Melania Trump? Okay. But humiliating her with this kind of betrayal makes the world a more vicious, and dare I say totalitarian, place. I spent a year talking with people in the Soviet bloc, reporting Live Not By Lies, about what their lives were like. Imagine a world in which you could not trust anybody. In which even your best friend might betray you to the secret police out of fear, or for the purpose of personal gain. This happened all the time. After communism fell in East Germany, and people’s Stasi files were made public, many former East Germans were staggered by the discovery that people they trusted the most — even their spouses — informed on them.

Related: Attention unhinged rage-harpies still parroting lies about the #MelaniaTapes, this thread of what she actually said is just for you.