White House Regrets Its Handling of Rob Porter Case: ‘We All Could Have Done Better’
February 9, 2018 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
“I think it’s fair to say we all could have done better over the few hours or last few days in dealing with this situation,” Mr. Shah said.
Mr. Porter was seen as a crucial ally in bringing order and discipline to a White House full of political and policy novices, and as an even-tempered check on the volatile tendencies of the president and some of his other aides. The office of the staff secretary puts together the president’s briefing book every day, as well as memorandums for scheduled meetings.
During the Obama administration, the president would also receive a set of briefing and decisional memos most nights.
“This required our team to review highly classified material for the president on a daily basis,” said Joani Walsh, who served as President Barack Obama’s staff secretary. Like others in the office, Ms. Walsh had a clearance that allowed her to see top-secret and sensitive compartmentalized information, usually called “T.S./S.C.I. clearance.” Officials who hold the post also typically have code-word clearance to handle the country’s most closely guarded secrets.
The White House did not address on Thursday how Mr. Porter could have served in that role given that the top security clearance his job requires had been held up because the F.B.I. had learned of the allegations by his former wives.
Jennifer Willoughby, his second wife, said in an interview that in September, Mr. Porter had told her that White House officials had informed him that his security clearance “had not gone through.” She said he told her that “someone had told him that there was a violent allegation and that was what was holding it up.”
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By CHRIS CIRILLO and SARAH STEIN KERR on Publish Date February 8, 2018.
Photo by Eric Thayer for The New York Times.
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Both Ms. Willoughby and Colbie Holderness, Mr. Porter’s first wife, said on Thursday that they had first been interviewed by F.B.I. officials last January, soon after Mr. Porter joined the Trump administration.
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Ms. Holderness said Mr. Porter tried to work through an intermediary to discourage her from divulging his violent behavior. She said he had dispatched a mutual acquaintance last January to approach her husband, Skiffington Holderness.
According to an email Mr. Holderness sent to the F.B.I., Mr. Porter’s friend had told him that it was “good” that Ms. Holderness was not initially thinking about speaking with the F.B.I.
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“Rob isn’t lying; that women around town lie because they are ‘crazy’ and jealous,” Mr. Holderness said the man told him, according to the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.
After their initial interviews with officials last January, both Ms. Willoughby and Ms. Holderness said that they did not hear from the F.B.I. agent who had handled their case again until September.
At that point, the agent emailed Ms. Willoughby for permission to gain access to a restraining order she had filed against Mr. Porter in 2010, writing, “in furtherance of the background investigation.” At Thursday’s news briefing, Mr. Shah said the investigation had continued since January 2017 until this week, when Mr. Porter left the White House.
The photographs that Mr. Shah said had “saddened” Mr. Trump and ultimately led White House officials to back away from Mr. Porter were in the F.B.I.’s possession over a year ago. In an email dated Jan. 27, 2017, Ms. Holderness sent the F.B.I. agent who had interviewed her a set of four photographs that showed her with a black eye that she said Mr. Porter had given her. She followed with another email containing more photos of her swollen eye, which she said she suffered while the couple took a trip abroad.
Rob Cromwell, a former senior F.B.I. agent who oversaw all background investigations for the bureau, including those at the White House, said it would be highly unusual for the agency not to have informed the White House of such allegations.
“A serious allegation like that? The F.B.I. would notify the White House right away,” Mr. Cromwell said. “You’re having a person exposed to classified material, and that’s a risk. The customer is notified, and the customer, in this case, is the White House.”
Mr. Porter would also have been required to disclose the accusations on the standard form, known as the SF-86, that government employees are required to complete to serve in a national security position. The form asks about specific arrests, charges, convictions and protective orders currently in effect, then makes an open-ended request for the applicant to disclose any “public record civil court action” in which they have been involved in the past 10 years. If the F.B.I. becomes aware that someone has lied on the form or omitted responsive information, it can be disqualifying.
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Even as Mr. Porter’s former wives publicly pressed their accusations against him, Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, whom he has been dating, met with other White House officials in drafting the initial statements sent in Mr. Porter’s defense, according to two West Wing officials.
When the accusations first surfaced, Mr. Kelly and others issued fulsome statements of support for their colleague. The White House spent most of Wednesday defending Mr. Porter even as he announced his resignation, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary, saying the president and Mr. Kelly both had “full confidence in his abilities and his performance.”
It was only hours later on Wednesday night that Mr. Kelly issued a new statement saying he had been “shocked by the new allegations” against Mr. Porter.
Correction: February 8, 2018
A caption that appeared with a photograph with an earlier version of this article misidentified the man with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff. He was Thomas P. Bossert, the president’s homeland security adviser, not Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned Wednesday.
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