Trump decries ‘shattered’ lives after week of personnel turmoil

WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump decried lives “being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation” at the end of a week that saw the departure of two White House aides after accusations of domestic violence.

“There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone,” Trump posted on Twitter Saturday.

Although Trump didn’t specify to whom who he was referring, the post followed remarks the president made on Friday, when asked about the departure of White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who resigned after two ex-wives and an ex-girlfriend came forward to detail allegations of physical abuse.

During his comments in the Oval Office, the president didn’t mention the women or address domestic violence, instead remarking that it was a “tough time” for his former aide.

The White House announced later Friday that speechwriter David Sorensen, who worked at the Council on Environmental Quality, had resigned after administration officials learned that his ex-wife had accused him of physical abuse.

Trump’s comments were the latest in a which he’s appeared willing to offer support to men accused of sexual impropriety.

The president endorsed Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate last year, despite multiple allegations that he initiated sexual encounters with minors.

The president himself has faced accusations— which he’s denied—from more than a dozen women of offenses including groping and nonconsensual kissing.

Trump has been less supportive of “due process” in the past. In 1989, Trump placed full-page ads in New York newspapers calling for the execution of black and Latino teenagers accused of assaulting and raping a white woman in Central Park. The “Central Park Five” were later exonerated by DNA evidence. Trump also repeatedly questioned the validity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, despite no credible evidence to dispute the fact Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

He’s come to the defense, though, of people like Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts he had with the Russian government. “General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed,” Trump lamented on Twitter in December. Trump has also repeatedly termed the investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia a witch hunt driven by Democrats.