President Donald Trump's personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout abruptly resigned from her post. Photo / Facebook
President Donald Trump's personal assistant abruptly resigned from her post after it was revealed she shared information about the president's family with members of the press, according to reports in the US.
Madeleine Westerhout stepped down after Trump found out that she disclosed the personal details to reporters while they were staying in hotels near his Bedminster New Jersey golf resort, the New York Times reported.
Westerhout also shared information about White House operations with the reporters, according to CNN.
News and information website heavy.com said Westerhout had been one of the President's most trusted confidants since 2016. She started working for Trump as his "greeter girl" welcoming dignitaries visiting the President at Trump Tower while she was still assistant to Republican National Committee chief of staff Katie Walsh.
She quickly became part of the President's inner circle.
"Madeleine is the key," Trump told the I in 2018. "She's the secret." The message was clear: If you wanted to talk to President Trump, you went through Westerhout.
According to a report from Politico, for the past six months, Westerhout tried to "expand the boundaries of her job to encompass a broader set of tasks and to include foreign travel".
An anonymous White House adviser told Politico that Westerhout tried to act like a "de facto chief of staff" which "irked several White House officials and Cabinet secretaries who thought she should stick to her primary task of serving as the president's personal secretary with a desk just outside the Oval Office".
The unnamed adviser called the latest incident where Westerhout shared details about the President's personal life "the final straw".