title:  Mooch Changes His Tune, Says Reporter ‘Absolutely’ Recorded Him Without Permission
text: So here s a funny hypothetical: You re a White House Communications Director. You ve settled into your office in the West Wing. You have a definite connection with the boss   your speaking styles are similar, you come from the same moneyed and even geographical background, and just for good measure, let s say you both are known to engage in the occasional  locker room talk.  Honestly, you re over the moon at landing this job, because you ve been after it for half a year, and god knows there have been some twerps standing in your way.There s really only one thing you should be concerned with, and that s knowing how to do this. Maybe Anthony Scaramucci got so excited to work for Donald Trump that he forgot to learn that last part. And if this hypothetical were about you, dear reader, I can t imagine that you d overlook a teensy detail like knowing how to do things  off the record. The Mooch s downfall came from the hilariously bad telephone conversation he had with Ryan Lizza, Washington correspondent for the New Yorker. Scaramucci called Lizza to try and ascertain the identity of a  leaker  who had told him about a dinner Donald Trump attended. That phone call was, as everyone now knows, recorded.Now Mooch is claiming that Ryan Lizza broke the law. Or rather, he s insinuating it..@RyanLizza is the Linda Tripp of 2017. People know. And he is up at night not being able to live with himself.  Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) August 10, 2017Linda Tripp, of course, is the woman who recorded over 20 hours of telephone conversations with Monica Lewinski, whose dalliances with Bill Clinton ended with impeachment in the House of Representatives. There are questions to this day whether or not Tripp broke the law: Maryland law still dictates that all parties must consent to the taping of a phone call, but courts there ruled at the time that the law didn t apply to people who didn t know it was illegal. She broke the law, but if she didn t know she was breaking the law, she didn t break it. Ooookay.So of course that led to the question:Are you accusing him of taping the call without your permission?  Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) August 10, 2017And the succinct, albeit editorialized, answer:Yes. He absolutely taped the call without my permission. #lowlife https://t.co/fTDcBw4vcT  Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) August 10, 2017Scaramucci, like his former boss, thinks that any offense committed against him must somehow be a crime. We learned from the phone call to Lizza that Mooch believed  leaking  his (publicly available) financial disclosures to the press wasn t just a crime but a felony for which he promised to involve the FBI and DOJ. So does he think Lizza (hashtag lowlife), by recording without his  permission,  broke the law as well?Turns out it doesn t matter. In Washington D.C.   where both ends of the phone call took place   taping a telephone conversation requires only the consent of one party. Don t wonder too long about whether hitting a button to start recording is consent from one: It is. And from his tweets today, Ryan Lizza is definitely not losing sleep over it.Sorry, Mooch. You re still the dipshit who just didn t know how to do his job. And really, talking to the press is pretty much one of the only jobs a WH Director of Communications even has to do, right?Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images