The following column appears first and foremost on RealClearPolitics.com and is used with the permission of its author.
Dear Mr. Secretary,
That advice — about telling the truth early, all, and yourself — has been my core strategy as a lawyer specializing in crisis management and media communications strategy.
It’s the subtitle of a book I wrote 20 years ago.
You could ask your former Fox News Channel colleague, Sean Hannity, who often introduced me when I was a guest on his show as the “Tell it early, all, yourself” crisis management expert.
I’ve followed this strategy for the past 30 years to help clients — people, famous and not, companies, private and public, through major media and business crises.
I know my approach is counterintuitive.
It sometimes requires volunteering bad facts to the media, to get them all out publicly all at once, rather than waiting for them to dribble out, drip by drip, as they almost always do.
You’ll achieve the goal of crisis management – get the story over with as quickly as possible and communicate to the public that you accept responsibility for your mistake.
I’ve used this strategy successfully for many high-profile clients, whose stories I recounted in my book “Crisis Tales: Five Rules for Coping with Crises in Business, Politics, and Life”: from Martha Stewart to the Penn State University Board of Trustees, from Republican Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., to the Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel.
In my experience, getting the truth out created a positive impression about the client, putting the crisis in the past and improving the prospects for reputation repair and rehabilitation.
Secretary Hegseth, had you asked my advice when you first got the sinking feeling that journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was invited into the group chat without you or anyone else knowing, I would have offered you five recommendations:
First, I would have told you to immediately inform President Trump what happened and tell him as you already have that the national security team had made a big mistake, even to the point of offering your resignation to show that you believe in accountability.
As it turns out, Trump, to his credit, has been gracious to you, attributing your mistake as understandable human error, and he almost certainly would not have accepted your resignation.
But making the gesture would have enhanced your credibility before your inevitable appearances before Congress and in the mainstream media.
Second, you should have immediately issued a public statement admitting your mistake of judgment and taking responsibility. I would have urged you not to attack Jeff Goldberg, as you and several other administration officials have done.
Most discerning people view that as weak and disingenuous.
Third, I recommend that you stop playing semantic games while trying to spin the idea that information about bombing another country wasn’t classified or highly sensitive. How does splitting hairs about “war plans” versus “attack plans” absolve you?
Answer: It doesn’t. It’s also inconsistent with your core crisis management strategy and sincere message: your acceptance of responsibility and accountability.
Fourth, I would have urged you (talk about counterintuitive!) to call Goldberg and offer him an exclusive interview to explain what happened and own up to the mistakes committed by national security team.
The reason for doing so would not have been to hope for kid-glove treatment by The Atlantic or the rest of the media — and that would not have been the result.
Granting Goldberg an exclusive interview would have allowed your message to dominate much of the follow-up media coverage.
Fifth, and finally — the most difficult advice of all (and the one I think you’d most quickly reject): You could use this episode to acknowledge the unfair treatment of Hillary Clinton by you and those on your side regarding her use of a Blackberry device to send personal emails and official business emails, all of them stored on a secure server supervised by the U.S. Secret Service. You can now empathize with how she felt when she heard so many calling for her to be “locked up” without so much as a prosecution or trial.
Belief in redemption and forgiveness is one great big common ground among most Americans — left, right, liberal, conservative, pro-Trump, or pro-Biden. It’s one of our nation’s most appealing traits.
It’s not too late. It’s never too late to tell all the truth, tell it early, and tell it yourself.
That is not only effective crisis management advice — it is good advice for you to turn the corner on this crisis and move on.
Lanny Davis is the founder of the Washington, D.C., law firm Lanny J. Davis & Associates. From 2018-2024 he served as a legal advisor for Michael Cohen. From 1996-98, Mr. Davis served as special White House counsel to then-President Bill Clinton. In 2006, he was appointed by then-President George W. Bush, to serve on a special post-9/11 White House panel, to advise the president on privacy and civil liberties. He’s the author of six books on politics, government, law, and crisis management. Read more of Lanny Davis’ reports — Here.
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