Trump aide to leave as legal threat grows

DONALD Trump last night announced that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly will quit by the end of the year.

The departure of the retired Marine Corps general, said to have repeatedly clashed with Mr Trump, comes as the President faces the prospect of criminal charges after US prosecutors claimed he knew about $280,000 of ‘hush money’ paid to two women claiming to have had affairs with him.

Documents allege his former lawyer Michael Cohen paid off porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal ‘in coordination with and at the direction of the President’. Mr Trump denies knowledge of the payments.