Trump's family members got 'inappropriately close' to Secret Service agents, book claims

Two members of former US President Donald Trump got “inappropriately and perhaps dangerously close” to Secret Service agents protecting them, claimed a new book on the agents Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, by the Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig. According to the copy obtained by The Guardian, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist writes that Secret Service agents reported that ex-US President’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr’s wife, Vanessa Trump “started dating one of the agents who had been assigned to her family.”

Vanessa Trump had filed for an uncontested divorce in march 2018 and Leonnig reports that the agent concerned did not face any disciplinary action as neither he nor the agency was official guardians of her at that point. Apart from Vanessa, Leonnig has also written that Donald Trump’s daughter, Tiffany Trump and former US President’s second wife Marla Maples broke up with a boyfriend and “began spending an unusual amount of time alone with a Secret Service agent on her detail”.

The book on US Secret Service has also claimed that the leaders of the agency “became concerned at how close Tiffany appeared to be getting to the tall, dark and handsome agent”. The controversial claims regarding the Trump family tenure in the White House has caused a stir because the agents are prohibited from forming any kind of personal relationships with the ones they protect in the United States. The rule is established out of concern that such feelings could further hamper their judgement.

Tiffany Trump and agent said nothing

In the book which will be published next week, Leonnig has written has both Tiffany Trump and the agent involved did not say anything untoward was happening. The author also pointed out that the nature of the agent’s job reportedly required him to spend time alone with his charge. However, that agent was eventually reassigned. Leonnig has also noted that it remains unclear if Donald Trump was aware of what Secret Service personnel were saying about both his daughter and daughter-in-law.

However, Leonnig noted in the book, that Donald Trump did repeatedly ask the Secret Service to remove the staff that he deemed unfit to do the job. The former US President is reported to have said, “I want these fat guys off my detail...How are they going to protect me and my family if they can’t run down the street?”

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