A man of honor and integrity my ass. John Kelly hasn't taken responsibility for a single thing since he got to the White House, and worse yet, he has had somebody to blame for every problem.
Trump is a madman? Blame Jared and Ivanka, and Amarosa, and everybody else for getting in his ear, and make them get hall passes to get through the door to the Oval Office. Trump has a Twitter tantrum? Don't blame Kely, he deals in information, not social media. Trump says stupid shit? He's channeling "The Mooch," and Steve Bannon, get rid of them. Trump insults a gold star widow? Blame Frederica Wilson for daring to be in the car and talking about it. Trump loves racists? Blame the damn Yankees for not compromising with the South before the civil war, and thereby eliminating the formation of the KKK. It's one lame ass excuse after another with this guy.
Which makes the heat he currently finds himself under for his handling of the Rob Porter wife battering scandal such a mystery. Kelly has had to stretch like Elastic Man to grab several of his excuses, and here he has a tailor made patsy, and he's not using him. Why?
Both Kelly and Don Mcgahn are taking serious heat from reporting that shows that the FBI made a final report in July to the White House on Porter's background check, with a supplementary addendum in November. Both men had to know about the allegations at that point, but did nothing. But the warning was actually broadcast much earlier.
Background checks are not complicated, you start at the center and work out, like ripples on a still pond. The subject is the stone going into the water. Who are the closest ripples? Well, his parents, if still alive. His siblings. His spouse, fiance, or girlfriend. Any ex spouses. And any coworkers o record. These are the "low hanging fruit," the first ones to be interviewed and based on their information, the circle may expand from there.
Yesterday, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that the FBI sent an interim report to the White House on Porter in March. It is almost inconceivable that Porter's ex wives had not already been interviewed, and their information in that interim report. John Kelly wasn't the chief of staff all the way back in March.
No, but Reince Priebus was. Multiple ex officials have stated that both the White House counsel, Don McGahn, and the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, would have either received a copy of the report, or been briefed on it. If Priebus was aware of the potential security risk all the way back in March, why on earth would he not have brought it to Trump's attention? And if he did, why would Trump allow a clear and present danger like Porter to continue to peruse the most sacred secrets the government has to offer?
If somebody like me can figure this out from Wray's timeline, is it plausible that a retired Marine four star general could be that stupid? John Kelly has blamed everybody but Saint Theresa of Calcutta for his failings and shortcomings. Why isn't he chaining Reince Priebus to a stake and dropping a match on the pile of sticks?
I wrote recently that Trump is supremely pissed at Kelly, not for his mishandling of the scandal, but for the fac that the way he mishandled it brought him media coverage at least equal to if not more than Trump. That is the one treasonous crime in
Trumpmenistan. If Kelly were going to resign, he would have done after Charleston, or certainly after the Sergeant LaDavid Johnson debacle, so clearly he lacks the moral compass. But here, I'm left to wonder if the reason he isn't tattooing Reince Priebus with this is because he's secretly hoping that the media coverage of his incompetence will become so intense that Trump will finally start to feel the fallout heat, release his paw from the trap, and let him go scurrying back from whence he came. Sounds like just the kind of cowardly, sneaky, underhanded thing the "new and improved" John Kelly would do.
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Cross posted at The Trump Impeachment.