Crisis Management Requires Truth, Not Obfuscation

By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications

There are some people who believe President Donald Trump and his closest advisers committed illegal acts by conspiring with Russian officials before and after the 2016 presidential election. Others believe the president and his advisers indeed had contacts with Russian officials, but that those contacts were benign and not criminal.

Our friend and colleague, Peter Sandman, often writes about crisis communications, which he calls “outrage management.” Sandman says the value of outrage management, as it relates to the Trump/Russia boondoggle, depends on what the truth is:

“When what you did was really awful and people are rightly extremely upset,” Sandman says, “your central problem isn’t that people are upset; it’s what you did … the value of outrage management for ameliorating the furor over contact between Russian intelligence and people associated with the Trump campaign depends on what the truth is.”

The question many ask is whether Trump and his campaign people, before and after Election Day, actively conspired with the Russian government, with promises made on both sides. If that is indeed the truth, then the president’s current efforts to cast doubt and distrust about the Mueller investigation’s possible conclusions — and even its raison d’etre — make perfect sense because that truth will likely end his presidency.

On the other hand, if candidate Trump and his campaign people were engaged in no more than the typical amount of conversation that goes on between foreign governments and incoming presidential administrations, all within standard legal and ethical boundaries and with the goals of beginning a new relationship and discussing existing and nascent policy matters, then everything looks much different.

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