Trump's assistant and Oval Office gatekeeper Madeleine Westerhout abruptly resigned

Madeleine Westerhout, President Trump's personal assistant and director of Oval Office operations, resigned abruptly Thursday after Trump learned she had "indiscreetly shared details about his family and the Oval Office operations" during an off-the-record dinner with reporters in Bedminster, New Jersey, The New York Times reported late Thursday, citing two people familiar with her exit.

While the dinner had been off-the-record, CNN reports, Westerhout did not specify that her comments were off-the-record and a reporter disclosed what she said to the White House. The West Wing had been buzzing all day about Westerhout's possible exit, Politico adds, describing what she told reporters as "intimate details about the president's family" and "overly personal details about the president's life." She is considered a "separated employee" and won't be allowed to return to the White House, where her desk was outside Trump's Oval Office door and she had served as a key gatekeeper since his inauguration, the Times reports.

Westerhout, 28, was reportedly viewed with suspicion by some Trump loyalists, as she had joined the Trump team late, coming over from the Republican National Committee. A former Romney 2012 campaign staffer, she was "inconsolable" on Election Night 2016, upset that Trump had won, according to Tim Alberta's recent book American Carnage. "To the amusement of her RNC peers, she was later chosen as the president's executive assistant and now sits just outside the Oval Office."

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"Westerhout's power in the White House came almost entirely from proximity," the Times reports. "She is not a name-brand White House aide and has never appeared on television, unless it was an accidental shot of her hovering behind her boss." In the past six months, though, "Westerhout had tried to expand the boundaries of her job to encompass a broader set of tasks and to include foreign travel," Politico reports, irking "several White House officials and Cabinet secretaries who thought she should stick to her primary task of serving as the president's personal secretary."