/Trump personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout abruptly resigns

Trump personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout abruptly resigns

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.

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 near 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 administration and helped escort people to and from the gilded elevators in Trump Tower during the transition.

Westerhout was one of six administration officials who 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.

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