Donald Trump’s White House personal assistant abruptly resigns amid scandal, and gets banned from the building

| 9:55 pm EDT August 29, 2019
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One of the most consistent trends in Donald Trump’s White House has been the record setting level of near-constant turnover. Trump’s people keep getting fired amid scandal, or resigning amid controversy, or resigning in protest. Trump increasingly isn’t even bothering to replace the people who are leaving, as evidenced by the sheer number of people in his administration who are serving in an “acting” capacity, or holding down two job titles. Now yet another of his key people has left the building.

The President of the United States has a personal assistant (think Charlie from The West Wing), and for Donald Trump, that person has been Madeleine Westerhout from day one. Or at least she was. Someone in the White House has told the New York Times that Westerhout has abruptly resigned after having discussed “details about Trump’s family” with reporters in an off-the-record capacity. Oops.

Westerhout has technically “resigned” and not been fired, but she’s already been banned from the White House, which in political terms generally means that a person was forced to resign under threat of being fired. Even more strangely, Westerhout supposedly shared these Trump family personal details with reporters while she was at a Trump golf resort in New Jersey.

The ouster of Madeleine Westerhout is essentially par for the course when it comes to Donald Trump’s White House. Trump fired Anthony Scaramucci after just eleven days, after Scaramucci had forced Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer to resign. Omarosa Manigault was reportedly dragged from the White House after being fired. Steve Bannon and numerous others have also departed amid controversy.