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Rob Porter Worked at Highest Levels of the Trump White House From Day One – Yet His Background Check ‘Was Not Completed’

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How long does an FBI background check take? How long until someone has to say “you’re fired,” or “we’re just going to ignore this”? And who did?

Rob Porter is or was the White House Staff Secretary who resigned or was terminated on Wednesday and may or may not still be working for the Trump Administration. 

Those are just some of the “facts” White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah shared with reporters Thursday afternoon at a press briefing originally scheduled for 1:00 PM that did not begin until nearly three hours later.

The White House Staff Secretary is one of the top positions in the White House. As the Staff Secretary Rob Porter was responsible for literally every document President Trump saw.

Porter “worked closely with Trump, often accompanying him on official travel,” USA Today explained. “He’s even credited with helping craft Trump’s State of the Union address. As staff secretary, Porter is responsible for the flow of presidential paperwork around the West Wing and to the president’s desk. The job is an important gatekeeper to the Oval Office, ensuring that executive orders, decision memos, bills, nominations and other actions are thoroughly vetted before reaching the president.”

Someone with that level of access, both to the president himself and to highly classified, likely top secret memos should have a top level background check completed before they begin work, right?

Not in the Trump administration.

Porter, as most know at this point, was accused by both his ex-wives of domestic abuse. Violent domestic abuse. Graphic and disturbing photos included.

The FBI knew of the allegations, and the White House had to have known, before a bombshell article in The Daily Mail exposed the accusations, including many details, was published Tuesday.

Here’s how the White House responded to the Rob Porter scandal Thursday.

“The allegations made against Rob Porter, as we understand them, involve incidents long before he joined the White House.  Therefore, they are best evaluated through the background check process,” Raj Shah told reporters in a prepared statement he read from the press room podium.

Remember Shah’s second sentence for a bit. 

“It’s important to remember that Rob Porter has repeatedly denied these allegations, and done so publicly,” Shah continued, sounding exactly like President Trump did when he defended accused child rapist Roy Moore. “That doesn’t change how serious and disturbing these allegations are. They’re upsetting. And the background check investigates both the allegations and the denials.  The investigation does not stop when allegations comes to light. It continues to determine the truth.”

Porter began his job as White House Staff Secretary January 20, 2017 – over a year ago. 

How long does an FBI background check take? How long until someone has to say “you’re fired,” or decides, “we’re just going to ignore this”?

“We should not short-circuit an investigation just because allegations are made, unless they could compromise national security or interfere with operations at the White House,” Shah continued. “The truth must be determined.”

Absolutely.

Except Porter’s alleged violent behavior meant he was the perfect candidate to be blackmailed – which “could compromise national security.” Again, this person had access to every document President Trump does.

“And that was what was going on with Rob Porter. His background investigation was ongoing,” Shah said. “He was operating on an interim security clearance. His clearance was never denied, and he resigned.”

Again: How long does an FBI background check take? How long until someone has to say “you’re fired,” or “we’re just going to ignore this”?

“To summarize, the allegations against Rob Porter are serious and deeply troubling. He did deny them. The incidents took place long before he joined the White House. Therefore, they were investigated as part of the background check, as this process is meant for such allegations. It was not completed, and Rob Porter has since resigned.”

Let’s do that again.

The background check “was not completed.” 13 months plus into his job.

“During his time at the White House, Rob received no waivers and no special treatment. And this is the tried and true process. It was followed meticulously.”

Many are calling for Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly to resign over his remarks on the Porter scandal, and on his handling of Porter,  and Kelly should go for those reasons.

But why is no one asking Reince Priebus, Trump’s first Chief of Staff, who must have known Porter’s background check was a problem?

 

 

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White House Responds to ‘Stone-Cold Loser’ Carville After Devastating Prediction

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In a rare move, the White House is pushing back against James Carville, after the longtime political consultant and prolific pundit predicted that Donald Trump’s presidency would end within the next year.

“I’m saying this right now,” Carville declared on his Politicon podcast. “You’re not going to be president a year from now. You’re too soft a man. You’re too weak. Your support is draining out.”

“People are going to be on to you. And when the Democrats get back in office in January, they’re going right after the corruption,” Carville added.

“We’re going to find out all the money that has gone the wrong way, and we’re going to have a legal proceeding, and we’re going to have what you call a clawback,” he said.

The White House, in a statement to Fox News, slammed Carville.

READ MORE: Where Were Republicans as Trump Zigzagged on Iran War and Peace?

“James Carville is a stone-cold loser who suffers from a severe and incurable disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, and it has rotted his peanut-sized brain,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital in a statement.

Carville had other strong words for the president.

“You’re so screwed,” he warned, before referring to a New York Times article.

“They’re leaking on you like crazy,” Carville said.  “You can’t trust anybody. Your staff is leaking on you. The Pentagon is leaking on you. The State Department is leaking out here. Everybody is dumping all over you, loser. And, you know, this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

He also warned the president about Vice President JD Vance’s loyalty, and later said, “you’re done, dude. You’re really done. No one fears you anymore. Your own staff doesn’t fear you.”

“But, dude, you and I know something,” Carville continued. “We got a little secret between me and you. You’re done. People hate you. Trust no one. Be as paranoid as you possibly be, because you can’t be paranoid enough.”

READ MORE: Will ‘Sputtering’ Trump Ever Learn His Lesson?: Columnist

 

Image via Reuters 

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Will ‘Sputtering’ Trump Ever Learn His Lesson?: Columnist

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As his tenuous ceasefire approaches the 48-hour mark, President Donald Trump remains a “foolhardy and unpredictable executive-in-training” who got “schooled” by Iran, writes Trump biographer and Bloomberg columnist Timothy L. O’Brien.

In addition to costing American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, Trump’s Iran war has cost the lives of American soldiers, and thousands of Iranians. The economic tab may soon approach $100 billion, says O’Brien. But there have also been enormous “reputational, civic and strategic costs” for America.

“In the run-up to a two-week ceasefire announced on Tuesday evening, the president took to social media and the airwaves to warn Iran and the world that ‘a whole civilization will die’ and he intended to bomb the country ‘back to the stone ages.’ He brushed off questions about whether he was willing to commit war crimes by noting that Iranians are ‘animals.'”

Trump’s “dangerous and reckless flexes” may have just been him “bluffing, but sophisticated dealmakers know that undeliverable threats backfire when your bluff is called” — and Iran “called Trump’s bluff.”

READ MORE: Where Were Republicans as Trump Zigzagged on Iran War and Peace?

Now, writes O’Brien, Trump is, “essentially, a downed power line. If he is left to his own devices, sputtering, further conflagrations could consume the Middle East.”

O’Brien reminds that once elected, presidents “should come to the job with tangible aptitudes for management, leadership, policy, rationality and decency,” and not need the White House to be their “finishing school.”

But “largely uneducable,” Trump faces an Iran ceasefire that “is a recess of sorts for the world’s most powerful and incendiary pupil, and he may return to class having failed to absorb his studies.”

Trump is a “blinkered, close-minded leader,” charges O’Brien, and “a serial bankruptcy artist” who, before entering the White House, “was never an adept dealmaker.”

A “serious student” would try to learn from the ceasefire. But a cornered Trump may become “even more dangerous and thuggish.”

Ultimately, Trump “will be measured by whether he defines his Iranian studies by weeks of failed exams — or commits himself to years of mindless and cataclysmic classwork.”

READ MORE: Trump Rages in Incoherent Truth Social Rant

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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Bill Kristol Diagnoses Trump’s ‘Conquistador’ Complex

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Conservative commentator Bill Kristol suggests President Donald Trump has a “conquistador” complex — which is a complete reversal from how he campaigned in 2024, on “no new wars.”

“If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace,” Trump declared during his 2024 campaign.

“These war hawks, they want to draft your kids to die in wars, and they will never fight themselves,” Trump said, days before the 2024 election.

The night he won, Trump told supporters, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Kristol writes at The Bulwark, “We haven’t heard much talk recently from the president about wars we’re not getting into.”

“Will one consequence of his humiliating failure in Iran be a return to such a stance? Perhaps the difficulties of the last two weeks have diminished Trump’s interest in foreign excursions?” he asks. “Appears not. A taste for foreign adventures seems to have lodged itself in Trump’s brain.”

READ MORE: Trump Rages in Incoherent Truth Social Rant

He points to Trump just weeks ago saying, “Cuba is ​next by the way.”

Just yesterday, Trump returned his focus to Greenland.

“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Thursday night, Trump appeared to threaten Iran again, declaring that all “U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.”

He concluded: “In the meantime our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK!”

Kristol notes that it is unusual for an American president to “proclaim ‘Conquest’ as his goal. In his June 6, 1944 D-Day prayer, President Roosevelt said that American soldiers ‘fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.'”

But for this president, “the dream of foreign conquest seems to have become a more central part of Trump’s personal sense of grandiosity, not to say megalomania, than it was earlier in his career.”

READ MORE: Trump Administration Wants Protected Health Records of Federal Workers

 

Image via Reuters 

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