Washington.
An official on Joe Biden’s team was temporarily suspended on Friday after allegedly threatening to “destroy” a journalist who was investigating her private life.
The deputy spokesman for the White House TJ Ducklo, 32, was suspended for a week without pay, according to Biden press secretary Jen Psaki.
According to Vanity Fair magazine, Ducklo called the site reporter Politico Tara Palmeri after she began asking questions about her romantic relationship with the journalist Axios, Politico’s rival, Alexi McCammond.
“and destroyed“Ducklo threatened Palmeri in a phone call shortly after Biden took office as president on January 20.
seconds Vanity Fair, Ducklo “made derogatory and misogynistic comments” about Palmeri and called her “jealous.”
“TJ Ducklo has apologized to the reporter, with whom he had a heated conversation about his personal life,” Psaki said in a note posted on Twitter.
“He is the first to know that this is not the standard of behavior set by the president,” he added.
In addition to being suspended for a week, Psaki said that Ducklo will no longer work with Politico reporters in their roles at the White house.
The now deputy spokesman was national press secretary for the Biden 2020 campaign.
Political Playbook, The Washington politics and gossip newsletter Palmeri works for, published this week that McCammond had made public in November that he was dating Ducklo.
One day after taking office as president, Biden warn his staff in the White House against disrespectful treatment of others.
“I’m not kidding when I say this: if you work with me and I hear you treat another colleague disrespectfully, despise someone, say goodbye to the act.”