This Story About Ivanka, Obama, and Poop Is So Much Worse Than You Could Imagine

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.The brute stupidity and utter selfishness of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have once again come into sharp focus. But nestled into the more familiar allegations of wasting tax-payer money in the latest report are the surprising appearances of former President Barack Obama and an “unpleasant” bathroom mess.
The Washington Post on Thursday revealed that Secret Service agents assigned to protect the home of Ivanka and Jared—a 5,000-square-foot mansion in the wealthy Kalorama neighborhood of Washington—were forbidden from using any of the couple’s 6.5 bathrooms. The ban reportedly sent agents regularly scrambling in search of a reliable toilet, even forcing some to hit up colleagues stationed at the nearby garage of Barack Obama. But the plan came crashing down after an agent for the Trump-Kushner unit, during a fateful 2017 trip, left a giant, “unpleasant mess” that sparked yet another bathroom ban. From the Post:

The Obamas did not use the garage, so the extra traffic to and from the command post caused no problem. Yet this solution, too, was short-lived after a Secret Service supervisor from the Trump/Kushner detail left an unpleasant mess in the Obama bathroom at some point before the fall of 2017, according to a person briefed on the event. That prompted the leaders of the Obama detail to ban the agents up the street from ever returning.
The agents assigned to the president’s daughter and son-in-law began driving a mile to Pence’s home at the Naval Observatory, where they were allowed to use a bathroom in a stand-alone guard station.

Eventually, the Secret Service started renting a neighbor’s basement studio so agents could relieve themselves. But the $3,000-a-month solution—more than $100,000 to date—comes at the expense of taxpayers, bringing this entire sordid tale back to Ivanka and Jared’s long record of blowing through taxpayer money while like dad, treating Secret Service agents like complete shit.