Disgrace! Trump’s Assistant Terminated Over Comments About Trump’s Daughters
No matter if she was terminated or resigned the West Wing Leaker Madeleine Westerhout broke a rule; don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Not only did she take a bite, she swallowed the hand and then choked on it.
Reports are starting to emerge that Westerhout who was the President’s personal assistant made crass statements about the Presidents daughters during an off the record conversation with the Press. The Politico’s Daniel Lippman reports:
Madeleine Westerhout, who left her White House job suddenly on Thursday as President Trump’s personal assistant, was fired after bragging to reporters that she had a better relationship with Trump than his own daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany Trump, and that the president did not like being in pictures with Tiffany because he perceived her as overweigh. Given Westerhout’s sensitive role as a confidante to the president, the few details the White House shared about her abrupt firing had Washington’s political-media class in a quiet frenzy on Thursday night and Friday.
🚨 SCOOP: Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal assistant, was fired after bragging to reporters that she had a better relationship w/ Trump than his own daughters and POTUS did not like being in pictures w/ Tiffany because he thought she was overweight. https://t.co/Hpyhh7I1b4
— Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) August 30, 2019
Lippman continued:
The critical comments happened at an off-the-record dinner, according to two people familiar with the matter, that Westerhout and deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley held earlier this month with reporters who were covering Trump’s vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Westerhout also jokingly told the journalists that Trump couldn’t pick Tiffany out of a crowd, said one of the people. “She had a couple drinks and in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment, she opened up to the reporters,” the person said.
At some point, Gidley left the restaurant for a television interview on Fox News. During that time — around 45 minutes to an hour — Westerhout made the comments to the reporters.
After the Aug. 17 dinner, which took place at the restaurant inside the nearby Embassy Suites hotel and included the Washington Post’s Phil Rucker, Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs, Reuters’ Steve Holland and the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Restuccia, Westerhout rode back to a different hotel, the Marriott, with Rucker and Holland.
On Friday GOP strategist Arthur Schwartz scolded the Washington Post because they were the ones that outed Westerhout’s off the record conversation. Washington Post White House bureau chief Philip Rucker was the one who burned Westerhouse by revealing the supposedly off-the-record conversation he “heard” (don’t believe that for a second) from someone else. When the White House discovered what was said they promptly fired Westerhouse. GOP strategist Schwartz ripped the Washington Post.
I’ve heard from two reporters that @PhilipRucker is the one that burned Madeleine Westerhout. A couple of people in the WH told me the same.
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) August 30, 2019
I’ve heard from two reporters that @PhilipRucker is the one that burned Madeleine Westerhout. A couple of people in the WH told me the same.
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) August 30, 2019
The Washington Post defended Rucker saying, “Philip Rucker is one of the best and most scrupulous reporters in the news business,” Ginsberg said. “He has always acted with the utmost honor and integrity and has never violated Washington Post standards or policies.”
The Washington Post didn’t deny what Rucker did and the Post refused to answer a follow-up question from Breitbart News.
Now, I don’t believe we are at a loss because as Politico’s Lippman dug further it was discovered that Westerhout was not trusted by many.
Westerhout was a staple in the West Wing, with a desk right outside the Oval Office and having control over much of who got in to speak with the president in person or over the phone and a lot of which papers made it to him and which did not. When it turned out she was allegedly leaking, as the Times noted, she was reportedly immediately terminated and told not to return to the White House. She was an aide to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now a Utah U.S. senator after carpetbagging his way out West last cycle when he bowed out of running for Senate against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in Massachusetts during his 2012 presidential campaign. She also served at the Republican National Committee (RNC) and in various other roles throughout the party before joining the Trump White House in the beginning of the administration.
Other officials were wary of Westerhout, who did not work on the campaign and joined Trump’s team after the 2016 election. She kept largely to herself, several noted, but frequently posted pictures on Instagram of life in the White House.
POLITICO’s Tim Alberta reported in his recent book, “American Carnage,” that Westerhout was observed crying on election night because she was unhappy that Trump had won. But she found her way into a top job at the White House, having previously worked at the Republican National Committee.
During the transition period, Westerhout was known as “elevator girl” or “greeter girl” because she was often photographed escorting guests to see the then president-elect at his office at Trump Tower in Manhattan. She was previously an assistant to Katie Walsh, a top RNC official who also joined the White House, only to resign just months into her tenure as deputy chief of staff.
Westerhout, 28, was a key gatekeeper for the president, screening his official calls and controlling the access of outside advisers.
One’s gotta wonder was she behind some of these classified leaks that were coming from inside the White House curated to embarrass the President?
