Trump personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout abruptly resigns

Image: Madeleine Westerhout watches as President Donald Trump speaks during
Madeleine Westerhout watches as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting at the White House in Washington. Copyright Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Getty Images file
Copyright Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Getty Images file
By Adam Edelman with NBC News Politics
Share this articleComments
Share this articleClose Button

Madeleine Westerhout left her job after she shared personal information about Trump's family and Oval Office operations at an off-the-record dinner with reporters.

ADVERTISEMENT

President Trump's personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout resigned from her job abruptly, a White House official and another person familiar with the situation told NBC News late Thursday night.

One of the sources said that Westerhout left the job because she shared personal information about the president's family and Oval Office operations at an off-the-record dinner with reporters earlier this month in Bedminster, N.J., where a Trump-owned golf club that the president often visits in summer months is located.

News of Westerhout's departure was first reported by The New York Times.

Westerhout, whose proximity to Trump made her a de facto White House gatekeeper, has been a fixture since the Trump transition in 2016.

One source described Westerhout's exit as "abrupt."

Westerhout, who previously had worked as an aide for the Republican National Committee and for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, was present during the earliest days of the Trump campaign, and helped escort people to and from the gilded elevators that Trump descended down in Trump Tower ahead of his June 2015 campaign announcement.

Westerhout was one of six administration officialswho a government watchdog agency found, in November 2018, to have violated the Hatch Act after tweeting support for Republicans or President Donald Trump on their government Twitter accounts.

The Office of Special Counsel declined to take disciplinary action against Westerhout and the five other administration officials.

Share this articleComments