Stephanie Grisham

The United States Office of Special Counsel stated that Grisham violated the Hatch Act of 1939 following a complaint by Senator Tom Carper.

She moved with her mother to East Wenatchee, Washington, where she graduated from Eastmont High School in 1994.

Her mother has since moved to Nebraska, where she is known as Ann Schroder.

Grisham began voting in Arizona as a registered Democrat in 1997.

Grisham attended Colorado Mesa University, but did not earn a degree.

Grisham was the spokeswoman for AAA Arizona in 2007, but was fired within a year after being accused of falsifying expense reports.

Grisham was fired from a subsequent job at ad agency Mindspace over plagiarism charges, copying AAA material verbatim into her client's web page.

From 2008 to 2010, Grisham worked as a spokeswoman for the Arizona Charter Schools Association.

There she met Tom Horne, Arizona's superintendent of public schools.

From about 2011 to 2014, Grisham was spokeswoman for Tom Horne after he was elected Arizona attorney general.

In 2012, Grisham also worked for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

She witnessed the 2014 Execution of Joseph Wood and controversially claimed that the two-hour ordeal had been "quite peaceful," contrary to several reports that Wood had "gasped and snorted" throughout his execution.

After Republican Mark Brnovich defeated Horne in the 2014 GOP primary, Grisham worked as a spokesperson for the Arizona House of Representatives Republican caucus.

She revoked the Arizona Capitol Times's press credentials hours after their reporting that the House speaker, David Gowan, had traveled at state taxpayers' expense during his campaign for Congress.

Reporters refused to comply, and Gowan rescinded the order.

In September 2015, Grisham worked as a press coordinator for Pope Francis's visit to Philadelphia as an independent contractor.

Circa August 2015, Grisham started working as a press aide to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Grisham was a press aide to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, and then a member of the presidential transition team.

She was Trump's third White House press secretary, succeeding Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and was the first White House Press Secretary to hold no press conferences, instead opting for interviews on conservative news outlets.

She helped arrange his campaign stops in Phoenix and around the state and region throughout the primary, a role that quickly expanded to include his rallies around the U.S. Grisham was on state payroll until May 2016, when she took an unpaid leave from the Arizona House of Representatives to work on Trump's campaign.

After his victory, Grisham was named a special adviser for operations and won a place on Trump's transition team.

Arizona House speaker David Gowan paid her $19,000 in state salary over an 8-week period while she was serving as a member of the Trump transition team.

After Trump's January 2017 inauguration, Grisham was named deputy press secretary for Sean Spicer in the West Wing of the White House.

In March 2017, First Lady Melania Trump moved her over to the East Wing.

A former White House colleague said that the president regretted losing Grisham to the first lady's office because of Grisham's loyalty and skill at handling the press while acting as his traveling press secretary.

During that time, she built relationships with many reporters at events.

Despite losing Grisham as part of his own staff, President Trump said he was satisfied that the first lady would "be in good hands".

Grisham was described by several sources who had worked with her previously as being "highly competent" and "self-aware"; some suggested that she enjoyed "trolling the press".

Grisham was accused of using her official Twitter account on July 11, 2018, to tweet out Trump's campaign slogan.

Violation of the act is not a crime, but a workplace guideline, and the agency responded by sending Grisham a warning letter.

Stephanie Ann Grisham (née Sommerville) is an American former White House official who was the 32nd White House press secretary and served as White House communications director from July 2019 to April 2020.

In July 2019, Grisham replaced Sarah Sanders as White House press secretary and White House communications director.

Grisham's appointment was announced by Melania Trump via Twitter on June 25, 2019.

She was chief of staff and press secretary for the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump from 2020 to 2021, after previously serving as her press secretary from 2017 to 2019.

Grisham assumed the role of chief of staff to the first lady on April 7, 2020.

She resigned on January 6, 2021, following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol.

In September 2021, she announced the publication of her book about her time working in the Trump administration, I'll Take Your Questions Now.

Stephanie Ann Sommerville was born in Colorado to Robert Leo Sommerville and Elizabeth Ann Calkins.

Her parents divorced, and her mother remarried, first to Dave Allen, with whom she had another daughter, and then to Roger Schroder.

Grisham came from a farming family.