After serving three years in the Trump White House, a gay staffer was fired and given an armed escort out of the White House when the powers that be discovered his “lively Grindr account,” according to the new memoir by former Melania Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
In the new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House, Grisham details an episode from early 2018 when she discovered an unnamed gay staffer that worked in then-First Lady Melania Trump’s office had been dismissed because there was an apparent “issue” with his security clearance.
“Whoever determined security clearances had come across his Grindr account and decided that some of the stuff on it would be ‘personally embarrassing’ to Mrs. Trump,” Grisham writes in the memoir.
According to the Stephanie Grisham tell-all, one of Melania's gay staffers was fired for having a Grindr account, which WH security determined could be "personally embarrassing to Mrs. Trump." Hold on. What could be more personally embarrassing than being Mrs. Trump?
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) October 5, 2021
Not only was the gay staffer fired, but Grisham writes that he was then “walked out of the White House by a woman from Human Resources, followed by an armed Secret Service agent, and not given a second thought.”
The incident occurs in the book as Grisham reflects on her thoughts on former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly who apparently became involved in reassignments or firings after the security clearance processes were revamped.
From what Grisham could ascertain, Kelly (who she describes as a “control freak”) was involved in the firing amid other activities that she describes as “pretty shitty.”
In no uncertain terms, Grisham shares, “I do know that one of Kelly’s deputies was well aware of what had happened and supported the decision, something that enraged me on many levels.”
Grisham says she distanced herself from Kelly after the firing writing in the memoir, “I just couldn’t get over that level of bias.”
“If the person had truly been removed solely because he was gay and had a lively Grindr account, that was wrong,” wrote Grisham.
And to underscore the hypocrisy, she added, “This was a White House filled with adulterers. I had a DUI, and they let me stay.”
#MelaniaTrump's Staffer Fired Over His 'Lively @Grindr Account': Book @BusinessInsider https://t.co/rWSh7cfihJ
— GlobalLGBTNews 🏳️🌈 (@GlobalLGBTNews) October 5, 2021
Grisham says initially Melania Trump was upset about the firing but in the end did nothing about it.
“If she had really wanted a staff member back on her team, if she had been truly outraged, she could have done something,” Grisham wrote. “She didn’t.”
At the end of the day, the tale doesn’t really offer any surprises in terms of Lady Trump’s character. During the Trump administration, we didn’t see much evidence of selflessness from the former First Lady. We all recall her infamous “I really don’t care. Do U?” coat worn on an official trip to Texas in 2018.
On a lighter note, imagine how differently the firing might have played out if the fictitious comedic character ‘Kooper the Gen Z intern’ (created by queer actor/comedian Benny Drama) had been the staffer escorted out of the White House that day.
The new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House, is available now at most book sellers. At this writing, the memoir is currently #5 on Amazon.
That sucks, I have a friend who is friendly with her and he says she’s very supportive of gay people.