Kelly: Saw early clearance woes

He says aide’s abuse case handled poorly

WASHINGTON — White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters Friday that he became aware of problems with security clearances among President Donald Trump’s aides soon after he accepted his job last summer.

He also said former staff secretary Rob Porter resigned Tuesday, Feb. 6 — the same day a news report came out containing allegations of domestic violence from two ex-wives — contradicting the White House’s previous account that Porter quit the following day. In the briefing with reporters, Kelly presented a new timeline for the Porter episode and conceded that the White House had handled it poorly. “We didn’t cover ourselves in glory in terms of how we handled that Wednesday morning,” the day after Kelly now says Porter resigned.

Kelly said he did not offer to resign over his handling of Porter, contrary to reports

last month that he had raised the idea with Trump.

“I have absolutely nothing to even consider resigning over,” he said Friday.

Kelly said that within six weeks of joining the White House last summer “it came to my notice that the kind of things I was used to in DOD in terms of the handling of classified material wasn’t up to the standards I had been used to,” using an acronym for the Defense Department. Kelly is a retired Marine general.

He learned then that “a number” of staff members didn’t have permanent security clearances. Porter was among them, though it remains unclear if Kelly knew that at the time. The chief of staff didn’t move until after Porter resigned to tighten White House clearance procedures and limit access to classified material for people with interim clearances.

Under his review, White House officials with interim clearances pending since before June 1 were cut off if they hadn’t received permanent clearances by Feb. 23. More than 30 aides had their clearances reduced from top secret to secret last week after Kelly’s review. One of those was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser.

The dispute over Kelly’s handling of Porter and security-clearance procedures has shaken confidence in Kelly within the White House and led to speculation that he might depart his job. Initially, many top aides rallied around Porter and Hope Hicks, the White House communications director who was dating Porter and helped draft the original statements defending him. Hicks announced Wednesday that she will be leaving the administration.

Porter was among the Trump aides working on an interim clearance, and the White House initially said his background check had not been completed before he quit. But FBI Director Chris Wray has said his agency submitted some information on Porter to the White House in March 2017, a full background report in July, and followed up with additional information in November and earlier this year.

There was a “disconnect” at the White House, Kelly said. “When that got looked at, I do not know, but Chris Wray was right. And it was a shock for me, certainly, because I thought the information that came over was in November.”

He did not explain why he or other top White House officials never asked the FBI why Porter’s high-level security clearance had been held up for more than a year.

The lengthy delay was highly unusual, and White House veterans have said it should have raised warning signs of a problem.

The Daily Mail Online, a U.S. website owned by a British tabloid, published an interview about 7 p.m. Feb. 6 with Porter’s second wife in which she accused Porter of mainly emotional and verbal abuse. Kelly said that after the Daily Mail contacted the White House about 5 p.m. that evening, he spoke to Porter about the report, and he denied the allegations.

Kelly went to an immigration meeting at the Capitol that evening. When he returned to the White House, a subsequent media inquiry arrived about 7:30 p.m. alleging Porter had physically abused his first ex-wife, he said.

“I talked to Rob and he just, he resigned,” Kelly said. Early Feb. 7, The Intercept, an online news outlet, published an interview with Porter’s first wife, including a photo of a black eye she said he had inflicted.

Kelly said he instructed aides to allow Porter back in the White House on Feb. 7 only long enough to close out his work, and he believed Porter told his subordinates that evening that he had resigned.

“The mix-up came, I guess, the next day,” Kelly said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters about 1:30 p.m. Feb. 7 that Trump and Kelly retained “full confidence and trust” in Porter. She then issued a statement from Porter calling the allegations “outrageous” and “simply false.” She said he had resigned but that “it won’t be immediate” and that his departure was “a personal decision that Rob made.”

The White House issued a statement from Kelly complimenting Porter as a “a man of true integrity and honor” that made no mention of the allegations against him. Kelly said Friday that “at that point in time, I thought [the statement] was accurate.”

He added, “The man we all knew, it was an absolute shock. His religion, his focus on work, et cetera. It was just a shock to us all.”

In the evening, Kelly issued a new statement condemning domestic violence. The next day, Feb. 8, was Porter’s last day in the office, deputy press secretary Raj Shah told reporters at the time.

The incident has put a sharp focus on the large number of White House staff members who had been working without permanent security clearance, including Kushner. The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to hold a hearing on security clearances Wednesday.

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