General John Kelly Just Admitted Trump Totally Lied About Call to Fallen Soldier’s Wife

‘I Did Not Say What She Said’ Trump Claimed. But, It’s Clear He Did.

The White House trotted out one of its most powerful weapons, Chief of Staff John Kelly, who took the press briefing room podium Thursday afternoon to defend President Trump’s handling of a call to the wife of a solder killed in action in Niger. But in doing so General Kelly, a respected retired Marine Corps general, admitted without question that his boss had lied to the press.

Trump came under fire Tuesday for saying, as Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson told reporters, that U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson “knew what he was getting into,” when he joined the military. The president made those remarks to Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. Johnson, in a call that was also heard by Rep. Wilson. 

General Kelly Thursday afternoon told reporters that the president had asked him for advice on what to say to the families of the four soldiers who died two weeks ago in Niger. Trump had not in any way acknowledged their deaths, not in public, nor by contacting the families, until asked about it Monday.

“I said to him: ‘Sir, there is nothing you can do to lighten the burden on these families,'” Kelly says he told Trump. And he told Trump what he was told when his own son was killed in action.

He “was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that one percent. He knew what the possibilities were because we’re at war,” Kelly says he had been told by a friend and colleague.

“That was the message that was transmitted” by President Trump to Myeshia Johnson, Kelly said.

That echoes almost exactly what Trump is accused of saying, and denies saying.

Which proves that Trump was absolutely lying on Wednesday when he told reporters point-blank, arms folded, “didn’t happen,” and accused Congresswoman Wilson of lying.

“I didn’t say what that congresswoman said, didn’t say it at all,” Trump told reporters Tuesday when asked. “I did not say what she said.”

It appears, according to General Kelly, he did.

CNBC’s John Harwood sums it all up:

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