Jared, Ivanka Reportedly Have No-Toilet Rule for Agents

Washington Post: Secret Service has spent $100K so far renting a nearby studio with bathroom
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 14, 2021 4:18 PM CST
Report: Jared, Ivanka Toilets Off-Limits to Secret Service
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.   (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The Washington Post is out with might be the buzziest story of the day—about toilets. The story alleges that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump refuse to let Secret Service agents guarding them use any of the 6.5 bathrooms inside their expansive home. As a result, the federal government has been paying $3,000 a month since the fall of 2017 to rent a studio apartment inside a nearby home in the ritzy DC neighborhood of Kalorama. Total cost to taxpayers so far? More than $100,000, according to the newspaper. A White House spokesperson denies the couple refused to let agents relieve themselves inside and says it was the Secret Service's decision to rent the studio. Multiple sources in the story disagree. “It’s the first time I ever heard of a Secret Service detail having to go to these extremes to find a bathroom,” one law enforcement official tells the Post.

At one point, the agency erected a porta-potty, but that came down when neighbors complained. They also temporarily used the facilities at the residences of the Obamas and VP Mike Pence. As you might imagine, the story is generating quite a reaction. At New York, Jonathan Chait has one of the more interesting takes: The couple's refusal to let the agents "go" inside "may seem fussy, or snobbish," he writes, but "their behavior can be seen more sympathetically as the residue of a childhood disorder Ivanka acquired through her toilet-obsessed father." (His post goes into detail on that.) Much of the sentiment, however, is similar to that expressed in a headline at Rolling Stone: "Jared and Ivanka Aren’t Sharing Toilets With People Who’ve Agreed to Die for Them." (More Ivanka Trump stories.)

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