Sean Spicer out amid White House shake up

WASHINGTON

Sean Spicer resigned as White House press secretary in protest at a major shakeup of Donald Trump's embattled administration, an official said.

Spicer — the administration's most recognizable face after the president — resigned after just six months in office, having been increasingly sidelined in recent weeks.

Spicer reached breaking point on Friday, the White House official said, when Trump appointed Anthony Scaramucci to be the new communications director, a bid to reset the scandal-wracked administration.

A source familiar with the deliberations said Trump had tapped the New York financier and long-time backer over the objections of White House chief of staff and Spicer ally Reince Priebus.

The post has been empty since the previous communications director Mike Dubke resigned in May. Spicer had privately said he would like to do the job and play more of an off-camera role.

He has not briefed the press on camera for a month, deferring to his deputy Sarah Sanders.

The last six months have seen the Trump administration lurch from one crisis to the next, with Trump frequently expressing displeasure with the media coverage he receives.

Spicer — who came from the Republican party and was not an early Trump supporter — bore the brunt of much of that fury.

As an investigation into Trump campaign ties with Russia deepened, the White House has become a pressure cooker of internal strife, exhaustion and palace intrigue.

It remained unclear Friday if Sanders and Priebus would stay in their roles.

Earlier Friday Trump's legal team also got a shakeup as Trump came under fire for comments interpreted as seeking to limit a probe by former FBI director Robert Mueller into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia's meddling in the 2016 US elections.

Mark Corallo, who coordinated the Trump legal team's public response to the crisis, told AFP in an email that he had resigned from his post.