The Strange Reason One Of Melania Trump's Staff Members Was Abruptly Fired

Despite her best efforts, Melania Trump has been in the news recently — and probably more than she'd like to be. During her time in the White House, Melania was arguably a different kind of first lady. She seemed to avoid traditional first lady duties as much as possible. And rather than picking an issue and sticking to it — the way Michelle Obama arduously fought childhood obesity — Melania chose "cyberbullying" and, per CNN, didn't exactly work around the clock to solve it. 

Much has been made of Melania's distaste for the White House and public service. As one of her biographers, Kate Barnett, put it when speaking to People earlier this year, "History will remember her silence."

Something history may also remember, though, are the series of mild scandals Melania was involved in during her time as the first lady. These include a secretly recorded phone call where she expressed her distaste for Christmas, and some of her interesting and perhaps slightly tone-deaf fashion choices — like her outfit while on safari in Kenya, per the Guardian. Now, Melania finds herself at the center of a new scandal, as revelations about one of her staff's abrupt firings continue to make news. Here's more.

Melania Trump is back in the news after a former staffer, Stephanie Grisham, wrote about the abrupt firing of one of Melania's long-time aides in her new book "I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House." According to Grisham, one of her closest friends on staff was let go reportedly for "security clearance issues," after working with Melania for more than three years. The decision to re-examine his clearance came when the former chief of staff John Kelly revamped the White House's security clearance process, letting go of "several staffers," per Insider.

Grisham was shocked to learn this man was fired reportedly because he had a Grindr account. Grindr is a dating app that caters to LGBTQ+ men. "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 wrote. The man "was 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," Grisham wrote.

Grisham blamed Melania for failing to stand up for her staff, despite apparently being upset about it, adding that this was indicative of the "transactional nature," of Melania's office. "If she had really wanted a staff member back on her team, if she had been truly outraged, she could have done something," Grisham claimed. "She didn't."