A LOYALTY-FREE ZONE:

A feeling of distrust has taken hold in the West Wing of Donald Trump's White House and beyond, as his aides view each other and officials across the federal government and on Capitol Hill with suspicion.

The result has been a stream of leaks flowing from the White House and federal agencies, and an attempt to lock down information and communication channels that could have serious consequences across the government and at the Capitol, where Trump tries to implement and advance his agenda.

In the White House itself, one top aide tried to take the office slated for another aide, Steve Bannon is looking to hire his own PR guru, and the details of Trump's calls with foreign leaders, typically closely held, are suddenly out in the open. [...]

Inside the White House, several Trump staffers said they were shocked at the number of leaks coming out of the operation having not worked in the Trump orbit before. "People are just knifing each other," one of these people said.

"Trying to nail down who the leakers are is like trying to count the cockroaches under the couch," said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump adviser who keeps in touch with some Trump aides. [...]

Despite the attempts to project a functional, harmonious White House, sources say it's far from that. People involved in the administration sometimes don't trust each other because there are several camps that remain warring factions. Top Trump aides often travel with him to events they don't necessarily need to attend because they want to be close to the power center and in the pictures.

Steve Bannon -- who has a loyal cadre of aides and allies, like Stephen Miller, the White House top policy adviser -- has been expanding his power base in the White House. Two sources said Bannon is looking to bring in his own PR adviser, Alexandra Preate, into the White House. Preate has previously served as both Bannon's spokeswoman and a spokeswoman for Breitbart News. He's also hired Breitbart immigration writer Julia Hahn and former Breitbart national security editor Seb Gorka, among others, bringing them into policy roles.

Other Trump staffers have been chafing at what they view as Miller and Bannon's secretive behavior, including their tendency to keep information from others in the White House, like on their executive orders.

The paranoia in the White House is also driven by the fact that no one is quite sure who is up and who is down, and who is on their side. One person involved in the administration described the conflict like this: "There are four chiefs of staff, and that's three too many." [...]

Priebus aides and allies are wary of aides like Miller, who they believe give the president bad information and then Trump "takes it in, every bit of it, and that's just not good," one person said. Yet Miller himself was caught off guard when "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough on Monday launched into a broadside on his conduct and wondered what, or who, sparked the host to blame him, a person familiar with the issue said.

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