Washington,
\nA second White House staffer in a week has resigned over domestic abuse claims, in a widening scandal that called into question the President\u2019s judgment and tainted his chief of staff John Kelly and longtime aide Hope Hicks.<\/p>\n
Hours after Trump\u2019s comments about staff secretary Rob Porter, a White House speech-writer, David Sorensen, on Friday resigned after his wife said he was abusive, claims he denies.<\/p>\n
Porter\u2014who also denies abuse alleged by two ex-wives, one of whom released a photo of herself with a black eye\u2014worked at the heart of the White House throughout the first year of Trump\u2019s administration, despite being denied a full security clearance.<\/p>\n
He only stepped down from his post on Wednesday after the accusations became public.<\/p>\n
Trump, who has himself been accused of sexual harassment or assault by two dozen women, fueled the scandal by praising Porter and suggesting he had a bright future.<\/p>\n
He made no mention of the ex-wives or the alleged domestic abuse.<\/p>\n
That prompted a sharp rebuke from Democrats like Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who slammed the White House\u2019s \u201cculture of misogyny.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief of Staff John Kelly was aware of the allegations and also praised Porter\u2019s conduct in the White House, maintaining that \u201cevery individual deserves the right to defend their reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks, perhaps Trump\u2019s most trusted aide, had helped craft the response to the scandal as White House communications director, despite being romantically involved with Porter.<\/p>\n
Deputy White House spokesman Raj Shah said the White House only learned late on Thursday about allegations against Sorensen, the speech-writer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe immediately confronted the staffer, he denied the allegations and he resigned today,\u201d Shah said.<\/p>\n
Sorensen\u2019s ex-wife Jessica Corbett told The Washington Post that while they were married, he ran a car over her foot, extinguished a cigarette on her hand, threw her into a wall and grabbed her by her hair, but that she did not report the incidents due to her then-husband\u2019s connections to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
While Sorensen\u2019s post as a Council on Environmental Quality speech-writer did not require a security clearance, Corbett said she had described his behavior to the FBI as it conducted an ongoing background check of Sorensen in the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s alarming Rob Porter remained in an influential role,\u201d said Democratic Representative Ann McLane Kuster, \u201ceven as revelations about his domestic abuse were apparently known among senior Trump staffers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump confidant and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski\u2014who was formerly romantically involved with Hicks\u2014pointed a finger of blame at former Marine corps general Kelly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe general is there to put in policies and processes and procedures. And in this case, those didn\u2019t work and we need to find out why,\u201d he told Fox News.<\/p>\n
The White House was forced to quell rumors that Kelly was ready to resign.<\/p>\n
Trump and \u201cmany\u201d White House staffers are irritated at Kelly\u2019s support for Porter\u2019s character and for falsely insisting he that he aggressively sought to have him fired once the abuse allegations surfaced, according to The New York Times.<\/p>\n
Vice President Mike Pence, who is attending the Olympics in South Korea, tried to distance himself from the issue, but also stressed in an NBC interview that \u201cthere is no tolerance in this White House, no place in America for domestic abuse.\u201d Trump was elected promising to bring \u201cthe best people\u201d with him to \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d in Washington.<\/p>\n
In reality, he has struggled to hire high-caliber staff, with many experienced Washington operatives keeping their distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of us could have done better,\u201d Shah told reporters in a rare show of contrition from the Trump White House.<\/p>\n
Shah refused to confirm in detail when and how Kelly in particular became aware of the claims, or Hicks\u2019s role in shaping the White House response.<\/p>\n
Until hours before the Harvard graduate left his post, the White House was praising him as an upstanding and integral member of staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cRob Porter has been effective in his role as staff secretary. The president and chief of staff have full confidence in his abilities and his performance,\u201d said spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, A second White House staffer in a week has resigned over domestic abuse claims, in a widening scandal that called into question the President\u2019s judgment and tainted his chief of staff John Kelly and longtime aide Hope Hicks. Hours after Trump\u2019s comments about staff secretary Rob Porter, a White House speech-writer, David Sorensen, on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21479,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21477\/revisions\/21479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}