telling the associated press, quote, we have a broken system and i think everybody s come to agree with that now. coats was later asked about the risks of temporary clearances at today s senate intel hearing. i think sometimes it is necessary to have some type of preliminary clearance in order to fill a slot, but i have publicly stated if that is the case, the access has to be limited with the kind of information they can receive or not receive. the process is broken. it needs to be reformed. these latest developments have intensified the focus on this man, white house chief of staff john kelly and how he has handled the domestic abuse allegations against rob porter and the questions about his security clearance. the wall street journal reports when kelly was asked if the situation should have been handled differently he responded, quote, no it was all done right. tonight a new report in the the
he s began musings about possible replacements. and the post adds this quote, kelly is a big fat liar said one white house official who spoke on the anonymity to share a candid opinion. his handing of the scandal amounts dereliction of duty. a lot to get to here tonight. let s bring in our panel. we welcome to this broadcast bob bower, frank mantoya is back with us, former special agent in charge for the seattle division of the agency. he is served under fbi director comey and reported to of all things andrew mccabe. and the aforementioned ashley parker. ashley, we re going to begin to get with you. you and i have been hearing many of the same things this evening. first of all, most notably is that kelly is likely likely i guess is what we re saying on his way out and talking about the leading candidate replacement this hour. that s exactly right.
people with knowledge of the conversations. and the post report adds this, quote, kelly is a big, fat liar, said one white house official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a candid opinion. i ll say. to put it in terms the general would understand, his handling of the porter scandal amounts to dereliction of duty. it happens to be the title of the would be of h.r. mcmaster down the hall in the west wing. a lot to get to here tonight. let s bring in our panel. we welcome to this broadcast bob bower, frank mantoya is back with us, former special agent in charge for the seattle division of the agency. he served under fbi director comey and reported to of all things to andrew mccabe. the aforementioned ashley parker, white house reporter for the washington post. ashley, we re going to get to begin with you. you and i have been hearing many of the same things this evening. first of all, most notably is
everyone in the white house that they could not have mishandled this porter crisis any more than they did, kelly is still insisting they did everything right. to me that s the most trumpian thing he could possibly do. robert, let s talk about mr. mcgann, white house counsel. we had a former white house counsel on, but this guy s the current white house counsel. in your view, how much exposure and how much of a threat to his job in other words, has he got to deal with right now? based on my reporting, don mcgann is in a perilous position. it s not just because of the way he has handled rob porter, the former staff secretary. it s because he has long had tensions with jared kushner, the president s son-in-law, the daughter and senior adviser ivanka trump. there s a wing of the white house that general kelly and don mcgann are not part of, the jared kushner part of the white house. they have been frustrated with mcgann and they ve often played to the president s own
we know what we ve reported, which is that the president is not high on john kelly, has lost a lot of confidence in him, and that he has mused about different people including nic mulvaney, including kevin mccarthy, to others. there are a lot of people pushing gary cohn to the president. but i don t know directly that i d be able to corroborate how the president himself feels to that idea. what he s talking about is the trump caveat, that affects everything until decisions are done, dusted and signed onto. so robert, having said that, we heard nicolle wallace quoting a source familiar with the president s thinking and familiar with the west wing, saying that kelly and his assistant now secretary of the department of homeland security were sanctimonious upon arrival. they forced a lot of people, some of them trump favorites out of the orbit. they broke some glassware in