Trump says ‘shocked’ by aides’ allegations

THE White House insisted on Sunday that Donald Trump was “shocked and disturbed” by allegations of domestic abuse that led two staffers to resign, after the president faced flak for saying lives were being ruined by possibly false claims.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, said the president pushed the two staffers out the moment he saw credible evidence against them.

Other White House aides similarly supported Trump’s handling of the latest controversy to upend his administration.

“I think the president, like the rest of us, were shocked and disturbed by the allegations,” Conway said on ABC’s This Week.

Trump is said to be annoyed by the focus on the latest White House turmoil, especially as it comes on the eve of his release of a major infrastructure spending initiative.

“So many positive things going on for the U.S.A. and the Fake News Media just doesn’t want to go there,” he tweeted on Sunday. “Same negative stories over and over again.”

Conway said the job of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was not in jeopardy over his handling of the matter. Critics say he badly mishandled the situation, possibly even exposing one of the ousted aides to the risk of blackmail.

Asked about Trump’s tweet on Saturday that lives were being “shattered and destroyed” by allegations that are sometimes false, Conway told CNN’s State of the Union there was “no reason not to believe the women”.

Yet Trump made no mention of the ex-wives of the two former staffers, or of the alleged abuse.

White House speechwriter David Sorensen resigned on Friday, even while denying his former wife’s claims of abuse, and staff secretary Rob Porter, a close Kelly aide, stepped down Wednesday after abuse allegations from two ex-wives that he too denied became public.

While reports say that the FBI was told of allegations against Porter last year – and that Kelly had long known of them – Conway said Trump found out only along with other Americans.

“The president tells me he learned when the rest of us did,” she said, “the pictures, the police reports, the information provided to the FBI”.

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney – who also denied being considered to replace Kelly – said Trump was inclined to give someone he had worked with “the benefit of the doubt”. That was “probably a very normal and human reaction”, Mulvaney said. Once photos emerged showing Porter’s ex-wife with a black eye, Mulvaney said, “he was gone almost immediately”.