But White House backs aide despite vid

THE WHITE HOUSE stood by chief of staff John Kelly’s false claims about a Florida congresswoman on Friday — despite video evidence that proved him wrong.

Rep. Frederica Wilson publicly defended herself on Friday, backed by a twoyear-old video clip that showed she didn’t use a 2015 speech to grandstand about raising money for a federal building named for two slain FBI agents — something Kelly accused her of doing a day earlier.

Video of the nine minute speech posted online by the South Florida Sun Sentinel discredits Kelly’s account.

But the White House said former Marine Corps general “absolutely” stands by his distortion of reality amid a spiraling controversy surrounding a phone call President Trump made to the widow of a fallen soldier.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders chastised the media, saying it was “highly inappropriate” to question the words of a former four-star general.

The tape shows Wilson thanking thenFBI Director James Comey and other agents and talking about the dangers of the job.

She does applaud her own efforts — to speed along legislation dedicating the building in honor of agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove, killed during a 1986 shootout with bank robbers south of Miami.

Far from grandstanding, Wilson said her work and that of other lawmakers, “speaks to the respect that our Congress has for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the men and women who put their lives on the line every single day.”

But Wilson, Sanders maintained Friday, “also had quite a few comments that day that weren’t part of that speech and weren’t part of that video that were also witnessed by many people that were there — what Gen. Kelly referenced yesterday.”

Kelly ripped Wilson on Thursday, calling her an “empty barrel” who “makes noise” and claimed she said “she got the money” for the Miramar field office.

He implied that he and other service members were appalled by Wilson’s selfcongratulatory tone.

“A congresswoman stood up, and in a long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call, he gave the money — the $20 million — to build the building, and she sat down, and we were stunned,” Kelly said during his extraordinary press conference. Embroiled in a heated back-and-forth with the White House over a condolence call Trump made to the widow of a slain Army sergeant, Wilson pushed back on Friday.

She again criticized Trump for his call to the pregnant widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four Americans killed two weeks ago in Niger, saying it was “not a good message to say to anyone who has lost a child at war.”

Wilson took umbrage with Kelly’s story about the dedication in Florida and his defense of the President, saying the former general “needs to stop telling lies on me.”

Kelly, who used his turn at the podium to speak about his own son’s death in Afghanistan, said he instructed Trump on what to say when he made the calls to grieving relatives.

“He has my sympathy for the loss of his son. But he can’t just go on TV and lie on me,” Wilson told CNN.

She also accused Kelly of using a racist term when he called her an “empty barrel.”

It’s unclear how the Shakespearean phrase, akin to the line “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound” from “Henry V” and which traces its roots to Plato, would be construed as racist.

Sanders sought to clarify by adding a slight dig at Wilson’s love of ornate hats.

“If you don’t understand that reference I’ll put it a little more simply — as we say in the South, all hat, no cattle,” she said.

Wilson chose to speak out about Trump’s comments after she found herself in the car with Johnson’s family when the President called on Tuesday.

She said that Trump told Johnson’s widow that “you know that this could happen when you signed up for it ... but it still hurts.” Johnson’s aunt also said the family took that remark to be disrespectful.

Before Kelly came to his defense, attempting to clarify that he instructed Trump on what to say, the President flat out denied Wilson’s account.

Wilson, a close friend of the family, was with the Johnsons at the Miami Airport to