Sarah Sanders and
Raj Shah are planning to leave the
White House, dealing a major blow to US President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the matter have claimed.
The members of the billionaire’s administration are two of the most visible staffers in the presidential building.
Mrs Sanders is understood to have told friends she plans to depart at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Mr Shah is also considering his leave, but no exact date has been confirmed.
Mrs Sanders is currently serving as the White House press secretary while Mr Shah is the principle deputy press secretary.
A former official told CBS News further exits are expected in the White House’s communication department in the next few weeks.
The source said: "There will be even more people leaving the White House sooner rather than later, laid off or just leaving out of exhaustion.
“And it is going to be harder to find good people to replace them.”
They added the Trump administration will have a “harder time” bringing in a new wave of staff because it will struggle to bring in “loyalists”.
The source continued: "I do think they're going to have a harder time getting the second wave of people in than the first, because those people were loyalists, and new folks will have to be recruited and encouraged and then survive the vetting process.
“In addition to all of that, the President prefers to have a small communications staff."
However, Sarah Sanders has since attempted to quash rumours of her departure.
She tweeted: “Does CBS News know something I don’t about my plans and my future?
“I was at my daughter’s year-end Kindergarten event and they ran a story about my ‘plans to leave the White House’ without even talking to me.
“I love my job and am honoured to work for the President of the United States.”
But previous high profile administration departures have also been denied prior to taking place.
Before to the departure of then secretary of state Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump had taken to Twitter in a desperate attempt to dispel rumours.
Back in December he wrote: “The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - fake news!
“He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!”
However, only three months later Mr Tillerson was fired from the top-tier role.
Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, stated the vast number of departures in high levels of the Trump camp shows “troubling inconsistency”.
She stated: "So many people haven't even stayed in these jobs to master the learning curve.
"You don't hear much about the importance of expertise.
“This is a White House that doesn't seem to value that or understand the consequences of it.
“It's kind of one of those things where we may not know the vulnerability of lacking expertise unless there is a crisis -- or a crisis that may have been averted had a person been in the room."
Another source emphasised the slew of exits risks the Trump administration bringing in replacements that “aren’t qualified”.
They explained: "Nobody wants to come in.
"So they've gone through two rounds and now they're at third tier of people who are just lucking out -- battlefield promotion ends up promoting people who aren't qualified for the position."
It is understood Mrs Sanders developed a close relationship with the Republican firebrand after the departure of Hope Hicks, the White House’s former communications director.
Several other high-profile communications staff have left the administration in recent months with Josh Raffel, the top communications aide of Jared Kushner, and National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton helping to form the list of departures.