The first lady's press secretary, Michael LaRosa, tried to take a date he had just met to his room on a secure floor while he was abroad at a hotel where the president was staying, insiders exclusively tell DailyMail .com.
Sources say LaRosa, 40, did this twice during the same trip when he accompanied Jill Biden to the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, in June 2022, and that it was part of a pattern of behavior that led to his forced resignation the following month.
An intelligence source confirmed the incident and claimed that it occurred twice on the same trip.
“He was caught by Secret Service not once but twice taking appointments to a secure floor, which obviously jeopardized the first lady's safety because you can't bring people in who aren't fully vetted,” a senior aide said of the White House .
According to insiders, Michael LaRosa, Jill Biden's former press secretary, tried to get two appointments to a secure hotel floor where the president was staying during the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid
LaRosa resigned from his first lady post a month after the hotel incidents. The First Lady is seen arriving in Spain ahead of the NATO summit
The White House praised LaRosa after his departure, but private sources said colleagues were eager to see him leave after the NATO summit
When asked about the incident, LaRosa, who is openly gay, told that he was only trying to bring one person into his room, a male staff member from a delegation from another country that he said he had met at the conference . He also insisted that he left the White House on good terms to take a job in the private sector.
As he left, White House officials publicly recognized him for his 18 months of service in the East Wing. But privately, sources tell , colleagues were hoping he would disappear without much fuss.
“In the last six months before his departure there was a long series of chaotic behavior, outbursts, unreliability, unpredictability and poor judgment,” an official said.
Colleagues bit their tongues for more than a year until LaRosa recently began criticizing the White House on cable news shows and social media.
He presents himself as a former senior staffer with extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the Biden administration and now appears regularly as a political commentator on MSNBC and CNN. And he's not afraid to stick his finger in the eyes of some of his old colleagues as he analyzes the day's news.
Addressing Biden's dismal poll numbers, LaRosa, a former MSNBC producer, last month blamed staffers for failing to respond to smears when he called for a shakeup.
“I have argued for months that this is the wrong approach to Republican attacks on Biden's integrity, reputation and family,” he tweeted on November 7. “One survey after another confirms everything I’ve been saying and writing for months.” . If he changes teams now it will look like he actually cares and sees the same #'s as us.”
The gloves were off. Current and former White House colleagues say he was not the insider he claimed to be, was never given a “seat at the table” at high-level meetings and was not empowered to participate in policymaking.
His resignation came after months of erratic behavior, including, according to insiders, the hotel incident
LaRosa, pictured here with Jill Biden at his farewell drink, now works for Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm whose founder was a top fundraiser for Donald Trump
LaRosa denies that he tried to take more than one date to his room on a secure floor of the InterContinental Hotel in Madrid, Spain, during last year's NATO summit
They say he is now also glossing over his professional experience after taking office in the White House.
LaRosa currently works for Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm whose founder was a top fundraiser for Donald Trump.
A September 2022 Politico article reported that Ballard had “poached” LaRosa from his previous job at Penta Group, a consulting firm where he had served as managing director of strategy.
However, two sources familiar with his time at Penta say he was not headhunted. They say Penta, formerly of Hamilton Place Strategies, was unhappy with his job performance and quietly pushed him out after less than a year, and that he then struggled to find another job before landing at Ballard.
But it is the way he has used his experience in the White House that has proven most troublesome.
“This whole idea that he was this high-level insider and was very close to the president or the first lady and focused on the campaign and political strategy couldn't be further from the truth,” said a source who worked with him The White House told .
“He was never allowed to attend high-level strategy meetings at the White House, and the way he portrays himself to the media, to Twitter, to clicks, etc. is not just an eye roll.” “It's really wrong and it annoys me personal.”
Speaking exclusively to , half a dozen former White House and campaign colleagues said LaRosa was increasingly unreliable.
They claim he inexplicably disappeared from work for hours and missed calls and meetings. Sources say he would also leak information to the media, from small anecdotes about Willow the Biden cat to more serious revelations like the president's daughter Ashley's Covid diagnosis in May 2022.
Allegations about LaRosa's time in the White House included that he inexplicably disappeared from work for hours, missed calls and meetings, and leaked information to the media
The information LaRosa allegedly leaked to the media ranged from small anecdotes about the Bidens' cat to Ashley Biden's Covid diagnosis
LaRosa is now a regular on CNN and MSNBC, where he's not afraid to look some of his old colleagues in the eye while analyzing the day's news
They also described a dangerous breach of protocol the same month when LaRosa traveled with Jill Biden on her surprise trip to war-torn Ukraine.
“He tipped off reporters about the classified movement in UKR before it was announced, putting the First Lady's entire travel, operations, staff and security at risk,” a White House official told .
“He admitted afterwards that he had tipped them off.”
They also described a trip to Connecticut in which LaRosa verbally abused a mid-level employee in front of a crowd, and other occasions in which he erupted in meetings.
“It was common for him to storm out of meetings and call everyone ridiculous and things like that,” a White House source said.
“He was spoken to about his behavior and told not to shout at colleagues and to control his temper,” the source said.
“The real bigger problems came towards the end of his term when he randomly insulted people, including junior staff,” another staffer added.
“It was clear he wasn't happy and I think he took that out on others and that led to him not being a great colleague in the end,” another senior employee said.
LaRosa admits taking a man to his hotel room in Spain, where First Lady Jill Bien was meeting the host country's Queen Letizia
According to colleagues, his actions in Madrid at the end of June 2022 were the last straw. According to sources, when world leaders gathered for the NATO summit, LaRosa went out on a date and then tried to invite the man for a nightcap at the InterContinental Hotel.
Multiple White House sources say he met someone on a dating app and was stopped and warned by the Secret Service. It is said that he made a second attempt on the same trip.
“We have a million badges, we have pins, we have a lot of security around the first lady,” one insider said. “And he stayed on a safe floor.”
“Even if it's just for a platonic cup of coffee, there are serious issues with getting someone to a safe floor,” the source added. “And the biggest thing is that he was warned and then he did it again.”
Another former colleague told : “As someone who traveled with the president, breaking the security bubble on these trips, especially for something like an affair with a random person, is just unimaginable.”
“This is an extremely dangerous safety faux pas.”
That was the beginning of the end of LaRosa's tenure in the White House.
“It wasn't that he was fired the next day, but it was made clear to him that it was time for him to go,” a senior employee said.
“There was a deliberate attempt to get him out,” another insider told .
LaRosa was allegedly warned about the risks of taking someone to the security floor, but did so a second time, according to four insiders who confirmed the story to
His critics also criticized the way LaRosa described himself as a “very high-level insider” and “very close to the president or the first lady.”
Four sources working in the White House at the time told the hotel story and that he had tried to get someone into his room twice. But LaRosa said it was only once.
“I had a date,” he told . “I am a single person who has brought someone back to my room or attempted to bring someone back to my room, as embarrassing as it is to discuss.”
LaRosa said he met the man in person, not through an app.
“I hope to be allowed to go on dates in my free time,” he told , adding with a laugh: “As you know, the Secret Service does much worse.”
“We met at the conference,” he said. “He worked for another country’s delegation. And we went for a drink.'
The date went well. After visiting a tapas restaurant, they went to the hotel where he and other White House staff, including the president and first lady, were staying.
He said his own room was on a staff floor, one below the First Family quarters. They passed through three security checkpoints before being stopped around 9 p.m
“We had to go through an area outside the hotel and a magnetometer to get into the hotel because the public was there too,” LaRosa recalls. “And then when you get off the elevator, there’s another checkpoint and they let us in there without any problem.”
When approached by , LaRosa admitted to trying to bring a male staff member from another country's delegation to his hotel room and stated that he was “on a date.”
Joe Biden and the leaders of other NATO countries agreed to increase the alliance's support for Ukraine through a “comprehensive aid package” including non-lethal defense equipment
“But when I got to the stairs that you go up, they just said it was too late to put anyone on the teacher's floor where I was,” he continued.
“I guess they were upset because I tried to bring someone up, but they didn’t say I couldn’t,” he said.
“They said it was too late. And I just didn't want to argue with them. So I was like, “Okay.” “We just went downstairs and had a drink with a few other people in the lobby.”
“There was no violation,” he added. “Even if it happened twice, which it didn't, we're talking about me, an adult, who goes out and consensually meets someone, like for dinner or drinks, and then brings them back to a staff floor, which is constantly and often happens, whether family or whoever.'
Chief of Staff Anthony Bernal was the one known to go on tirades, LaRosa claimed, not him
LaRosa also denied other claims made by former colleagues.
Regarding the accusation that he frequently leaked information to the press, he denied the three examples mentioned.
He denied giving reporters any tips about the trip to Ukraine, saying: “It is proven that nothing was ever leaked.”
He said that while he shared some information about the cat that had been living in his apartment, it was confidential and did not appear in a news story until long after he left the White House.
On the Covid revelation, he again said that Chief of Staff Bernal had authorized him to pass on the news. He admitted that the West Wing was indeed angry and apparently had not been informed in advance that he would release the information.
“I was told to announce it,” he told , saying shortly after the revelation: “I received angry messages from the West Wing that they had no warning.”
Regarding the allegations about his alleged shouting at the staff, he said that Bernal was more known for his tirades.
“If you do a simple Google search of our office, it will give you the culture,” he said. “If you Google Anthony Bernal, you get a sense of the culture of that office, which is that people in the White House and on the campaign trail recorded conversations with Anthony because he was abusive and bullying. 'That wasn't me.'
“I wasn't afraid of him, but we had a relationship where we were roommates on the campaign trail. “He hired me, he found me, he hired me as an outsider, which was like a lot of people who were there before me , took offense.”
Bernal did not respond to calls and messages from .
Vanessa Valdivia, the first lady's current press secretary, said: “We do not comment on personnel matters, but Michael's description of his time in the White House is completely inaccurate.”
A White House official responded to LaRosa's comments about Bernal and the workplace culture: “The characterizations he (LaRosa) made about the first lady's office and his former colleague Anthony Bernal are not true.”
“Bernal is well respected throughout the White House and many people in the first lady’s office have worked with him for years.”
LaRosa said he ultimately decided to strike out on his own and enter the private sector. He said he conducted an interview with Penta Group in mid-June, days before the Madrid trip. He left at the end of July.
“I left because I got a job offer,” he said.
He told that he was later invited to a champagne toast at the White House in September 2022 and to a Christmas party last year where he said he had “one on one” with Jill Biden.
He acknowledged that his time at Penta was short-lived, but said he was not forced to leave that job either. He said he went alone, with nothing else in line. He later took a job at Ballard. He was not “poached,” as reported in an article he now shares on his LinkedIn page.
LaRosa also said he never tried to inflate his experience. He served as press secretary to Jill Biden and special assistant to the president, jobs he downplayed in his interview with .
“I was an ordinary employee and I feel like it’s not that interesting,” he said. “It’s portrayed as if I’m more than I am.”
LaRosa's revelations about Ashley Biden and Willow the First Feline anger his colleagues in the White House
LaRosa claimed that those questioned against him were upset by his criticism of the way the Biden administration handled the Hunter Biden scandal
He said he was upset but not shocked that the story was coming out now, blaming it on the fact that he had criticized the administration, including the way it handled Hunter Biden and his unclear foreign dealings.
“I was the only one out there defending Hunter and saying the White House should defend him more aggressively,” LaRosa told .
“It's very clear that I'm a big supporter of Hunter, and their strategy has always been to downplay the Hunter thing. “So they weren't happy with me about that.”
“I guess they're mad because I can sometimes criticize the strategy of the president and the campaign team,” he continued.
“They want to do things to stop me from speaking, going on TV, or saying critical things in print.” I get it, it comes with the territory when you try to be objective rather than being a knee-jerk partisan .
“Washington is a tough place.” But I'm a really small fish in the pond, I would think. I don't know why they care so much about what I say.'