White House economic policies. Her romance with White House reporter Danny Concannon also entangles with her job, causing her colleagues to distrust her; in the first season episode "Lord John Marbury", the senior staff chooses to lie to her about troop movement in an Indo-Pakistani conflict, because they thought that she was too friendly with the press, particularly Danny, and would not be able to lie from the podium. In the press briefing room, she is asked by a reporter about the troop movement, which she laughingly denies; her having to retract the statement later damages her credibility with the press. Also, in the first-season episode "Mandatory Minimums", C.J. receives the staff's blame when Danny publishes a memo from a staffer, criticizing the president's performance. C.J. tells Danny in another episode that a relationship would damage her reputation; Shawn Parry-Giles opined that C.J. could not be involved with Danny while in the White House because the staff would see her only as the "woman-as-traitor" trope. C.J. develops into a politically astute character, sometimes more so than her male counterparts. Drawing on the previous incident in "Lord John Marbury", C.J. lies to the press in the first-season finale "What Kind of Day Has It Been", confidently delivering the misinformation directly to Danny. In "The Leadership Breakfast", C.J. correctly assesses that Toby Ziegler is ordering her to make a political mistake, which results in a congressman directly criticizing the president during a joint presidential and congressional press conference. Josh Lyman later comments to her that "you had a lot of opportunities to say 'I told you so' and score some points with Leo. You're a class act". In another episode, she thwarts a general who plans to give a television interview that would embarrass the president by questioning his military authority. Though the general calls her "kitten" when they meet, C.J. remains calm and points out that in her background research, she noticed that he has fraudulently obtained a medal for an act of service he never performed; the general attempts to return the conversation to Bartlet, but C.J. ends the conversation, cutting him off with "is there anything else, sir?" Romance As well as her on-again-off-again romance with Danny, C.J. has another love interest throughout the third season – a secret service agent named Simon Donovan (Mark Harmon), assigned to protect her after she receives death threats. C.J. is initially resistant