Donald Trump, though, enlisted his private detail to work a series of victory rallies he held after the election and was expected to keep some members of his team on after the inauguration. | Getty Trump taps private security director for White House job

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped his private security director, Keith Schiller, to be deputy assistant to the president and his director of Oval Office operations, confirming that he’ll bring at least one member of his personal security detail with him to the White House.

Schiller has worked with Trump since 1999, when the real estate mogul hired him as a part-time bodyguard. He now leads his private security force, a group that recently drew some scrutiny when POLITICO reported that Trump had opted to continuing using it after the election.


The Secret Service traditionally takes full control of managing security around presidents-elect and presidents, with local police sometimes assisting at public events.

Trump, though, enlisted his private detail to work a series of victory rallies he held after the election and was expected to keep some members of his team on after the inauguration. According to experts, such an arrangement is unprecedented in recent history; some former officials raised concerns that the mix of private security officials and Secret Service agents could increase confusion, liability and risk in general.

“It’s playing with fire,” Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent, told POLITICO last month.

Schiller will also bring some legal baggage with him to the White House — Schiller and four of his subordinates in the Trump security operation are the subjects of an ongoing lawsuit winding its way through New York State courts accusing them of assaulting a handful of protesters during a raucous protest outside the campaign’s Manhattan headquarters in September 2015.

In an affidavit filed in the case, Schiller acknowledged that he struck one of the protesters in the head. But he claimed that was because he felt the protester “physically grab me from behind and also felt that person’s hand on my firearm, which was strapped on the right side of my rib cage in a body holster. Based on my years of training, I instinctively reacted by turning around in one movement and striking the person with my open hand.”

The Trump campaign, the Trump Organization and Trump himself are also named as defendants in the suit.

Kenneth P. Vogel contributed to this report.