White House chief of staff John Kelly said “more people than I was comfortable with” had interim security clearances before his deputy Rob Porter resigned over spousal abuse claims, but that he only knew the reasons for some of the delays.
Kelly told reporters in his office Friday that he didn’t know anything about Porter’s two ex-wives alleging abuse until media reports on Feb. 6. But in other cases, Kelly said he was apprised of the reasons for the delayed issuance of clearances.
“It was brought to my attention that one young woman had excessive credit card debt and she was paying it down and she is since okay,” he said. “You all know that finances more than anything else tend to be why people violate security and in some cases turn into spies.”
Another instance was more serious, he said.
“In one case I did get a call, that there was one person who was clearly — they hadn’t even come close to the end of the investigation and said this person probably ought not to, probably is not going to get a clearance — not a bad guy, but just no reason to go through the whole process,” he said.
Kelly, who took over the top administrative job in July, said he began focusing on the high number of interim security clearances in September after noticing “a couple spreadsheets worth of people” were affected.
Kelly said it was not unusual for staffers to wait seven or eight months for a FBI background check process.
Kelly said he was surprised to learn that the FBI delivered information the White House personnel security office in “tranches.” He said he learned from FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before Congress last month that the FBI first informed the White House in March about Porter abuse allegations.
Kelly said that before Wray’s testimony, he believed the White House learned of the allegations against Porter in November, when the FBI completed its background check of Porter. Kelly said that White House counsel Don McGahn generally hears of problems with security clearance processes and then relays the information, though Kelly insisted he first learned of the Porter claims from media inquires.
