FBI's Wray's testimony undermines White House story of what they knew, when.

S. V. Date, HuffPost's senior White House correspondent, reports on FBI Director Christopher Wray's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.   He was asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), essentially, what did you tell the White House and when?

Wray replied, after some cautions about not being able to give specifics about an investigation, said the FBI gave them a preliminary report on Porter in March of 2017 and then a completed report in late July of 2017.

Wray added that "soon thereafter" the White House requested some further follow-up, which it completed and returned in November 2017.   He then said the FBI closed its investigation in January 2018, but then received "additional information" in early February, which it also passed on the the White House.

This contradicts in several specifics the White House story that Chief of Staff Kelly only learned that the allegations were true on Tuesday of last week and took action within 20 minutes.

Now, one can imagine that the WH wiggle room is that the FBI is correct in that it informed the WH of the allegations when it said it did -- and that Porter denied, or at least minimized, them to his White House boss.    Then, when the media published the picture of the ex-wife's black eye and the evidence of a police restraining order from the time, they could no longer white wash it.

At the very least, it makes the White House -- going at least to Kelly, if not Trump himself -- look duplicitous.   If your top staffer who handles all the secret documents for the president can't get a security clearance, of course you would ask the FBI why -- immediately following that partial report in March 2017.  

I'm guessing that it was brought to Trump's attention and that he made the decision to ignore the allegations.   Because he always believes the men, not the women.   It also means that, given a discrepancy between what an FBI investigation tells you, and what a staff member says about charges against himself, you choose to believe the staff member, not the FBI.

It's not credible that the FBI didn't have that black-eye photo from a cooperating witness who shared at least the info, if not the photo, with the White House.  But it was only when it got published and could no longer be denied that they acted.  Same pattern as with Michael Flynn. 

One side point that someone made is that, for unknown reasons, Jared Kushner also has not yet received a permanent security clearance.   With him, it may be that he initially concealed evidence of his contacts with Russia.   It may be those contacts in themselves.  Or it may be his complex financial businesses.  At any rate, Trump has reportedly waived the requirement (which he can do) for Kushner, and he remains a top adviser to the president, with nothing more than an interim security clearance.   The suggestion was that, if they had booted Porter, it would shine the spotlight on Trump's preferential treatment for his son-in-law.  So they just let it slide, keeping Porter on with an interim clearance (but also, we now know, with info from the FBI that he would never get a permanent top secret clearance.)

I'm inclined to think that it's simpler than that -- that the argument went like this:  (1)  Porter says he's innocent and the ex-wives are exaggerating out of anger at him;   (2)   men are vulnerable to women's claims, and a "mere allegation" (a term Trump used in a tweet) can ruin a man's career;  and (3)  besides, Porter is an exemplary public servant -- one of the few "professionals" on the White House staff (as Kelly originally said) -- and that, even if true, it doesn't affect his work.   So let's keep him.  Old boys club, and all that.

Here's the problem:   for over a year, Porter has been what the FBI would identify as a security risk because of his potential vulnerability to blackmail.   Right there in an office just outside the president's, handling every top secret document that came to the president.

Is it that they don't believe the FBI?   They are thorough in these checks.   Of course the FBI must have had the photo from their interview with the ex-wife a year ago.  The black eye had occurred in 2005.   Or is it just that Trump just doesn't care?   It's being reported today that, at the time all this broke open, Porter was being considered for an even higher position, possibly deputy chief of staff, to replace the one who was pushed out and into another job last week.

Even if it is that Trump just doesn't care, are we to believe that a retired, respected Marine general (Kelly) would continue to serve a president who didn't care about the security of the nation?  It's beginning to look more and more like that is the case.   We now have at least two serious occasions in which Kelly has demonstrably lied to the public as Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.

Even worse, POTUS probably would agree with Kelly and not care if he lied.   The main problem for Kelly is that he's getting too much media coverage.  That's what bothers Trump, to be upstaged.

Ralph