By Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House Communications Director Bill Shine has resigned as Donald Trump’s top White House communications aide and will move to work on the U.S. president’s 2020 re-election campaign, the White House said on Friday.
Shine, a former Fox News executive, resigned on Thursday and will serve as a senior campaign adviser ahead of the 2020 presidential election, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
A source close to Trump, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president had lost confidence in Shine and was relying heavily on Sanders to run the communications operation.
Shine is the latest in a string of communications directors who have had short tenures in the Trump White House, where the president in many ways serves as his own communications chief.
Trump said in a statement released by the White House that Shine had done an “outstanding” job.
“We will miss him in the White House, but look forward to working together on the 2020 Presidential Campaign, where he will be totally involved,” Trump said.
Shine said he was looking forward to spending more time with his family.
“Serving President Trump and this country has been the most rewarding experience of my entire life. To be a small part of all this President has done for the American people has truly been an honor,” he said in a statement.
Shine did not respond to an email requesting further comment.
The former Fox News executive was named to the top White House communications job in July, 14 months after he left the network amid charges he failed take effective steps to deal with sexual misconduct at the channel. Although not accused of harassment, Shine was named in a number of lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct and accused of not doing more to prevent it.
Trump named Shine to be assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for communications, a job that had been vacant since Hope Hicks, the president’s campaign confidante, left in February 2018.
The New Yorker magazine earlier this week reported on “seamlessly” close ties between Trump and Fox News, citing an expert on presidential studies who said the television network founded by Rupert Murdoch is the “closest we’ve come to having state TV.”
The article went on to describe the access and interviews that members of the White House have granted exclusively to Fox News.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Steve Holland; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
