Newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci raised eyebrows—the light, low-impact warm-up for what would turn out to be an absolutely epic and ongoing eyebrow workout regime—just days into his tenure on the job, when he responded to some West Wing leaks (which weren’t actually leaks) by quoting disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. “Why don’t you honor the job?,” Scaramucci asked reporters on a call. “You remember Joe Paterno? What would he say? Act like you’ve been there before.” Scaramucci then asked journalists to treat their work with “honor, dignity, and respect,” shortly before calling a New Yorker reporter to yell about how all his political rivals were mentally ill auto-fellators.
It turns out that Scaramucci’s connection to “JoePa”—who, you’ll recall, left his vaunted position at the Penn State football program in 2011, after it was revealed that he’d helped conceal the actions of a serial sex offender who preyed on children—runs a little deeper, though. His financial disclosure forms reveal that he’s currently credited as a co-executive producer on an upcoming HBO movie about Paterno, directed by Barry Levinson, with Al Pacino in the lead role. HBO confirmed that Scaramucci helped organize financing for the film, through Edward R. Presman Film Corp., one of many income sources listed on his forms. (He’s also connected to an upcoming Cheri Oteri movie, although he’s only an investor on that one, and as far as we know, Cheri Oteri has never been forced to retire from anything in disgrace.)