Scandal over Domestic Abuse allegations against one of the closest men to the president. Today the fbi publicly contradicted the white house time lean of what it knew and when about these allegations of spousal abuse facing rob porter. Allegations that he denies. At issue here the fbi background check porter had to undergo to get his job as a white house staff secretary. Heres what the administration has been telling the public. The allegations made against rob porter as we understand them involve incidents long before he joined the white house. The truth must be determined. And that was what was going on with rob porter. His Background Investigation was ongoing. As i know raj addressed last week, we let the process play out. Ongoing, hasnt been completed. I can tell you that the process for the background was ongoing, and the white house had not received any specific papers regarding the completion of that background check. So fast forward to this morning on capitol hill when the fbi
The 2016 election. Their assessment is that russia is still at it. There should be no doubt that russia perceives that its past efforts were successful and views the 2018 u. S. Midterm elections as a potential target for russian influence operation. Reporter we also heard testimony from the intelligence chief that russia sees it as a success because it allowed them to promote propaganda, use false operations which allowed them to have plausible deniability. Its just relatively inexpensive to achieve maximum results. We heard from the leading democrat on the Senate Committee that they are laying the foundation for more in 2018. The russian effort is a new area, utilized our social media platforms to push and spread misinformation at an unprecedented scale. Now, weve had more than a year to get our act together and address the threat posed by russia and implement a strategy to deter further attacks. But i believe, unfortunately, we still dont have a comprehensive plan. Reporter there are
Some are using the episode to settle scores against chief of staff john kelly, and recirculating his various missteps to build a public case for his incompetence. Others are point ing fingers at don mcgahn, white house counsel, natural recipient of information about a completed background keck check in normal white house. The president s do podium to ded it. Christopher wray said it was closed in january, whos telling the truth here . Both. As i said, the fbi portion was closed. The White House Personnel Security Office, who is the one that makes a recommendation for adjudicati adjudication, had not finished their not made a recommendation to the white house. Let me just clarify one more point, you said yesterday that you didnt get any paperwork from the fbi. Chris wray said you did see the paperwork, the various again, that would come through the White House Personnel Security Office which had not completed their investigation and not passed that information to the white house. Do you
Matthew . Last week raj said the situation could have been handled better. Yesterday you echoed that. Today the chief of staff said it was all done right. Can you explain, does the white house think this rob porter situation could have been handled differently or do you think it was all done right . As i said yesterday every day we come here, we do the very best we can and every day we can do better than we did the day before and were going to continue to strive for that. Were humans, making us imperfect people. I think every day we can learn from the day before and strive to do better. Thats our goal within our team and were going to continue to try to do everything we can to help serve the American People to the best of our ability. Was it important for hope hicks to be drafting some of these statements given her relationship with mr. Porter is this. She was not part of a lot of the conversations that took place. I dont recall any of you being in the room to say specifically what com
Us america is under attack. All part of the 11th hour as we get under way on a tuesday night. Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 390 of the Trump Administration, and this was day seven now of this still widening scandal over Domestic Abuse allegations against one of the closest men to the president. Today the fbi publicly contradicted the white house timeline of what it knew and when about allegations of spousal abuse facing rob porter. Allegations that he denies. At issue here the fbi background check porter had to undergo to get his job as a white house staff secretary. Heres what the administration has been telling the public. The allegations made against rob porter as we understand them involve incidents long before he joined the white house. The truth must be determined. And that was what was going on with rob porter. His Background Investigation was ongoing. As i know raj addressed last week, we let the process play out. It was ongo