Kelly and the Chaos The people who want him fired don’t want a better White House.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/kelly-and-the-chaos-1518566055
The tom toms are beating for the head of Chief of Staff John Kelly for mishandling the White House response to spousal abuse allegations against former aide Rob Porter. Unless President Trump has lost confidence in the former Marine General, it isn’t clear what good his dismissal would do beyond satisfying Mr. Trump’s opponents.
Mr. Kelly didn’t help himself Monday by saying that the White House handling of the Porter accusations “was all done right.” He and others misjudged the uproar that similar and credible stories by Mr. Porter’s two former wives would unleash amid the #MeToo furor. He also seems to have given Mr. Porter the benefit of the doubt when the only real “due process” in the White House should be what helps or hurts the President.
But Mr. Kelly didn’t abuse those women, though you wouldn’t know it from the media denunciations. Our guess is that, amid the 25 items in his inbox, Mr. Kelly wanted to keep one of his best deputies if he could. This may be a violation of the #MeToo movement’s view that all accusations are instantly believable, but it isn’t by itself a firing offense.
The latest uproar concerns whether the White House was accurate in saying the FBI investigation into Mr. Porter’s security clearance was “ongoing.” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress Tuesday that the FBI had “administratively closed” the Porter file last month. Mr. Porter was working under an interim clearance, and denial of a permanent clearance means someone must leave the White House. Mr. Kelly needs to get the complete story straight and make it public, but it isn’t clear that this discrepancy was intentional deception.
Mr. Kelly has reportedly offered to resign, and that might be something of a personal relief. The General gave up a cabinet post to work for this most difficult of Presidents, and he isn’t doing it for the money. He wants to help the country, and on the evidence until the Porter mess he has.
He has imposed at least a semblance of discipline since he arrived at the West Wing last summer. He eased out chaoticians like Steve Bannon and dramarians like Omarosa. He made it hard to walk in unannounced to the Oval Office, even for daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Policy now gets developed, debated and decided. The leakers are fewer. He was in charge for the success of tax reform.
Mr. Trump remains a hard client who can hurt his own cause at any moment, but that isn’t Mr. Kelly’s fault. As a former General, Mr. Kelly has the President’s respect in a way that his likely replacements might not. Mr. Trump treated Reince Priebus, his first chief of staff, like a political valet. We don’t know anyone in the White House who wants to return to the first six months of fire and fury, and this Presidency won’t benefit from more policy influence by Ivanka and Jared.
The point for Mr. Trump to keep in mind is that the people who want Mr. Kelly fired don’t want a better White House staff. They want perpetual political dysfunction.
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