WASHINGTON — More than 130 Secret Service agents assigned to protecting the White House or President Trump are isolating after they tested positive for the coronavirus or had contact with an infected colleague, according to a new report.
The outbreak has been linked to the slew of rallies that Trump did in the weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election and has sidelined approximately 10 percent of the agency’s core security team, the Washington Post reported Friday.
It comes as the West Wing and Trump 2020 campaign also deal with growing clusters that have recently sidelined chief of staff Mark Meadows, HUD Secretary Ben Carson and senior campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski.
In a blow to the campaign, adviser David Bossie, who had only just been named as the head of the president’s legal battle, was also diagnosed with the respiratory bug.
According to the Washington Post report, another eight staffers at the Republican National Committee are also sick with the disease.
Dozens of associates and staffers of the commander-in-chief have contracted COVID-19 in recent months, including the president himself as well as the first lady and their son, Barron.
Despite the infections, the White House has continued to eschew masks at events and hosted hundreds of people at an election night party in the East Room that is believed to be the source of several of the new West Wing infections.
One former senior Secret Service supervisor told The Post: “Being down more than 100 officers is very problematic.”
“That does not bode well for White House security,” they said.
Officers who are not infected will be expected to work longer hours and forgo days off to cover for their colleagues who are off duty.
A 2015 panel found that overworked Secret Service officers was one of the reasons for security breaches at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the report said.
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