‘Earpiece envy’: White House colleagues skeptical about why Valerie Jarrett has detail
5:47 PM 08/25/2013

Alex Pappas
Political Reporter

Why does President Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett have Secret Service protection?

It turns out that some of her colleagues inside the White House are skeptical that actual, specific threats resulted in Jarrett’s proection .

“While a high-profile White House official — especially an African-American woman, such as Jarrett — could legitimately be considered a more likely target than most, several West Wing officials I spoke to were dubious there had been any special threats against her,” writer Mark Leibovich reported in “This Town,” a new book on Washington.

Added Leibovich of Jarrett’s White House colleagues: “They suspected, rather, that Jarrett asked the president to authorize a detail out of ‘earpiece envy.’”

The Daily Caller reported in 2010 that in a largely unprecedented move, Jarrett and David Axelrod, another senior adviser who has since left the White House, were being driven to work by government drivers and that Jarrett had been made a “protectee” of the Secret Service.

Read more:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/25/earpie.../#ixzz2d1ggxyTG