A hidden camera has exposed what many conservatives have long suspected exists inside the federal bureaucracy — an insider actively working against the president he serves.
The O’Keefe Media Group dropped footage Tuesday that sent shockwaves through Washington, capturing a senior budget official inside the Executive Office of the President making a series of stunning anti-Trump statements — all while believing he was on a date arranged through an online platform.
Benjamin Ellisten, identified as a Senior Budget Analyst and Fund Manager within the Executive Office of the President, did not hold back once the cameras started rolling without his knowledge.
“We have got to get rid of Trump. Seriously. He’s a mess. He’s f*cking it up for everybody. Everybody. Gotta get rid of him, honestly,” Ellisten told the undercover reporter.
The remarks did not stop there. Ellisten went further, calling the sitting president a threat to the country itself.
“With him at the top, it’s next to impossible to do anything, like, he’s a madman, literally. He’s invincible. Nothing can stop him, and that’s dangerous,” Ellisten said on tape.
Ellisten then raised the question of the president’s mental state, stating: “The way his decisions are so erratic, you would think he drinks. He doesn’t drink. And that’s what makes it so dangerous, that somebody could be of sound mind and body, totally coherent, could just be so reckless in their decision-making. That’s scary.”
He made his position on Trump’s fitness for office clear in no uncertain terms.
“He should never be president, it’s, for me, it’s that simple,” he said. “That’s where it stops.”
When the undercover reporter asked whether his coworkers were aware of how he truly felt, Ellisten made clear he had been hiding his views from colleagues. “No, they can’t know,” he said.
The tape also captured Ellisten raising financial concerns about White House projects. He criticized Trump’s ongoing ballroom renovation at the White House, claiming the scope had grown well beyond what was originally disclosed.
“He’s doing more than what he told us initially, like before it was just a ballroom, but now there’s a secret basement for military operations and stuff,” Ellisten said on the recording.
He expressed alarm over the funding mechanism for the project, telling the undercover reporter: “He claims it’s being done, being built, being sponsored by all private donations. No one knows where the money is coming from. So, and people are just opening up their wallets.”
Ellisten drew a comparison to the gift-acceptance rules that govern all federal employees.
“Most I can accept as a gift, any government employee, is like, it’s $25. Well, [Trump] just accept — he’s a government employee too, so it doesn’t really matter,” he said.
Ellisten also sounded off on a Boeing aircraft gifted to the Trump administration by Qatar, intended for use as a new Air Force One.
He claimed retrofitting the aircraft would require approximately $1 billion in taxpayer funds and called the entire arrangement outright corruption. “This is just corruption. It’s just brazen and outrageous,” he said.
When O’Keefe Media Group contacted Ellisten for comment following the release of the footage, he claimed he had no knowledge of the recording before abruptly ending the call.
The White House moved swiftly. Daily Caller reporter Rebeka Zeljko reported that Ellisten was placed on administrative leave within hours of the story breaking.
A White House official issued a formal statement in response to the Daily Caller, saying: “This individual has been placed on administrative leave while we conduct a review and investigation. He has no direct access to the President or Senior Staff, and does not work on the White House campus. Such views expressed by the individual are not reflective of patriots who admirably serve in the Administration.”
The O’Keefe Media Group has not released the full unedited footage, and the recorded segments have not been independently verified.
