Porter

“The president believes, as he said the other day, you have to consider all sides,” said senior counselor Kellyanne Conway. “He has said this in the past about incidents that relate to him as well. At the same time, you have to look at the results. The result is that Rob Porter is no longer the staff secretary.”

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that “lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are

true and some are false.” And the day before, he pointed to Porter’s assertions of innocence and wished him a great future.

Conway also delivered what she said was a vote of confidence from Trump for chief of staff John Kelly, who has come under fire for his handling of the Porter matter. Kelly initially defended his right-hand man before later offering a version of the week’s events that puzzled aides and did not line up with the White House’s earlier timeline.

Budget director Mick Mulvaney, among those mentioned as a possible

Kelly successor if Trump were to make a change, also downplayed the speculation about Kelly’s standing, suggesting those stories “are mostly being fed by people who are unhappy that they have lost access to the president.” He said talk of Kelly’s departure is “much ado about nothing.”

But Trump has grown frustrated with Kelly, once commended for bringing discipline to the West Wing but who recently has been at the center of his own controversies.

Trump has begun floating possible names for a future chief of staff in conversations

with outside advisers, according to three people with knowledge of the conversations but not authorized to discuss them. In addition to Mulvaney, the others are House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Mark Meadows and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Mulvaney said no one has talked to him about replacing Kelly and “I don’t want that job.”

There was no sign that a move was imminent, according to the people with knowledge of the conversations. Trump is known to frequently poll his advisers about the performance of senior

staff and is often reluctant to actually fire aides.

Kelly has indicated he would step aside if he lost the faith of the president. But he has not offered to resign, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss personnel matters publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

But a number of West Wing aides were shaken by Kelly’s handling of the Porter accusations. At a senior staff meeting on Friday, Kelly tried to push his own timeline concerning Porter. Some aides in that meeting privately questioned Kelly’s account, thinking his version

of events was self-serving, according to one official with knowledge of the meeting but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Kelly has said he found out only Tuesday night that the accusations against Porter were true, but that same evening the White House released a statement of support for Porter from Kelly. The chief of staff, who has said he only learned of irregularities with Porter’s background check in November, insisted that the decision for the staff secretary was made before photos of one of his ex-wives with a black eye were published.