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

The sad tale of Secret Service agents and Ivanka’s 6.5 bathroom ban.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

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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. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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