From Day 1 at the Trump White House, Madeleine Westerhout had control over who could reach Donald J. Trump. She served as an executive assistant and later, the director of Oval Office operations, before she was pressured into stepping down in 2019 after sharing intimate and embarrassing details about the Trump family with reporters.
On Thursday, Ms. Westerhout was called to the witness stand by prosectors in Mr. Trump’s landmark hush-money trial in Manhattan. Under questioning by the prosecution, Ms. Westerhout established that she had worked within proximity of Mr. Trump and quickly understood his work habits. As president, he was on the phone a lot, some calls as early as 6 a.m., and often met with people in a small dining room off the Oval Office, she said.
On the stand, Ms. Westerhout confirmed that she communicated with Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, to schedule a February 2017 visit to the White House, a significant event that underpins the 34 felony charges Mr. Trump faces for falsifying business records.
Mr. Cohen, who gave the porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Mr. Trump, has said in recent years that he met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in early 2017 to discuss being reimbursed.
After that meeting, the Trump Organization began sending checks to Mr. Cohen that were labeled “legal expenses,” citing a retainer agreement. But prosecutors say the checks were actually reimbursements to Mr. Cohen, and that there was no retainer agreement.
Ms. Westerhout said she exchanged emails with Mr. Cohen in early 2017 to make sure he could gain entry into the White House for the meeting.
Ms. Westerhout’s name was brought up briefly in the early days of the witness testimony in the trial. On the stand, Rhona Graff, a former longtime assistant to Mr. Trump at the Trump Organization, confirmed that she had exchanged emails with Ms. Westerhout. Mr. Cohen has not yet been called to testify.
At the White House, Ms. Westerhout sat at a desk right outside the Oval Office and coordinated many of Mr. Trump’s calls, meetings and communications. She was a conduit to people outside of the White House and at Mr. Trump’s side through much of the day.
After she left the White House, she wrote a book, “Off the Record: My Dream Job at the White House, How I Lost It, and What I Learned,” which praised Mr. Trump extensively. In return, Mr. Trump praised the book and recommended it, signaling that there was no hostility between them.
She now works at a geopolitical consultant firm run by Robert O’Brien, one of Mr. Trump’s former national security advisers. Before working for Mr. Trump, she worked at the Republican National Committee.
