YES, WH KNEW: FBI BOSS
Admin denied having info on ‘wife beat’ aide
Accused wife beater Rob Porter’s FBI background check was finished in July, updated in November and shut down in January — a timeline that contradicts the White House’s version of events leading up to his forced resignation, the nation’s top G-man revealed on Tuesday.
“The FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March. And then a completed background investigation in late July,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“Soon thereafter, we received requests for follow-up inquiry, and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November and we administratively closed the file in January, and then earlier this month, we received some additional information and we passed that on as well,” Wray said.
“I am quite confident that in this instance, the FBI followed established [protocols],” he added.
Despite that account, Team Trump stuck to its story that no senior officials knew of accusations of wife-beating lodged against Porter until last week.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted during a tense press briefing that the reports and updates that the FBI sent to the White House remained bottled up in the “personnel security office.”
She said Chief of Staff John Kelly and others were not aware of the reports’ contents because that office was still investigating and didn’t share the information with even senior officials.
“That [FBI report] would come through the White House person- nel security office, which had not completed their investigation and had not passed that information to the White House,” Sanders said.
Kelly — who called Porter a man of “true integrity and honor” even after the allegations by Porter’s two ex-wives were revealed — also stood by his actions, telling The Wall Street Journal, “It was all done right.”
Porter was forced to resign as White House staff secretary last week after the accusations surfaced — accompanied by a picture of his first wife with a black eye. He maintains his innocence.
Sanders would not say whether Trump, who also publicly praised Porter after the allegations were revealed, believed Porter’s ex-wives’ accounts.
“The president takes all these accusations very seriously,” she said. “He believes in due process. Above everything else, he supports the victims of any type of violence, and certainly would condemn any violence against anyone.”
During an appearance Tuesday on WABC Radio’s “Curtis and Cosby” show, Eric Trump called domestic abusers the “lowest of the low,” but claimed not to know Porter.
Questions continued to swirl over why Porter was kept on the job without a permanent security clearance.
At the same Senate hearing, Danl Coats, the director of national intelligence, declined to comment on Porter’s case or those of other White House aides, including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-inlaw, who have only temporary security clearance.
He called for a complete “revolution” of the security clearance process, saying, “The process is broken. It needs to be reformed.”