Exwives accused him of abuse. One of them going as far as to file an emergency protective order in 2010. Although that order did not allege abuse, porter denied the allegations in a statement. Quote, these outrageous allegations are simply false. But the episode raises a fresh round of questions about who is vetting the most senior government officials and what did the president and his team know about porters past . Politico reporting this hour, quote, a Senior Administration official said chief of staff john kelly was previously aware of the 2010 protective order which prevented porter from getting a full security clearance. That reporting which nbc news has not yet confirmed is striking because john kelly last night released a statement of support for porter. Saying, quote, rob porter is a man of true integrity and honor and i cant say enough good things about him. Hes a friend, a confidant, and a trusted professional. I am proud to serve alongside him. Lets get right to this with nbcs Hallie Jackson at the white house and from the Washington PostWhite House Bureau chief phil rucker. Hallie, im seeing a lot of stories start to bubble up just as we came on the air about a lot of second guessing about chief of staff john kelly, both the decision to have him in this position in the first place and the decision to put that statement of strong support out yesterday. On the record out yesterday, nicolle. I think thats critical because we dont often see that. We dont always see that at this white house when somebodys job appears to be on the line as questions were coming up late yesterday. I think there are a couple significant things. One is the overarching look at security clearances and how the white house can say, if it does it, it didnt know about some of these allegations prior to porter joining the white house and becoming staff secretary. I am reminded what happened almost a year ago, nicolle, when you and i were talking about some of these very same questions about vetting relating to different people inside the administration, relating to, for example, mike flynn, what the white house knew, had they vetted him properly, what about his security clearance, security clearances for other members of the staff as well. The white house not responding to those questions during the briefing, although there is a new statement from Sarah Huckabee sanders in which she again does not elaborate on rob porters security clearance, but just a couple minutes ago, im pulling up my email here because it popped into our inboxes from Sarah Sanders in which she said the white house takes security clearances seriously, but not commenting on the specifics of porters clearance. The other piece is pulling back on rob porters involvement and interactions with the president on a daily basis. You better than anyone know this, you worked in the west wing. You are snow the title staff is a misleading title. We were reporting on hand because he was working on the state of the union speech. Having worked with orrin hatch and rob portman was back channeling on policies like tax reform, before that health care. Hes with the president on trips. He sits right there by the oval office. Looks at everything coming in and out of the oval office. Harvard guy, road scholar, son of a road scholar. Somebody very involved in the policy making piece of the white house. When we talk about inner circle rob porter is in it. It is significant that hes leaving. It is significant we dont know about his security clearance. It is significant we dont know when hes leaving. The white house talks about a smooth transition. He could be in the west wing a little while longer. Phil rucker, does the white house have a vetting problem . I held up one night, the form i had to fill in before i could go to work in the white house, before i could have access to a fraction of the kinds of things that rob porter would have seen as staff secretary. And the better name for people to understand this job is the person who has eyes on the access to the things that the only other person gets to see is the president of the United States. Yeah. The staff secretary is essentially weve seen more depictions in fiction of the body man, the person that sort of carries the president s stuff. Reggie low was president obamas body man. Mcentee is now. This staff secretary is a much more serious job, a much more substantive job and really the person who sees everything that goes in front of the president. How was that person, if the allegations are true, if the chief of staff knew about the order, how was that person not vetted or not required to have security clearances, phil . Its a great question. You know, donald trump during his campaign was not known for having a serious vetting operation. And in his transition to the white house did not have a serious vetting operation. Basically, if people if he liked people, they got the job. And they got hired and they got to sort of figure it out in the west wing. It did not begin as a particularly professional operation in terms of the vetting procedures were used to seeing at a white house. Now, that has improved slightly under chief of staff kelly, but still there was a problem there. But, nicolle, back to your point about the role rob porter played, we cant underscore enough how important he was to the operation of this white house. In particular, to john kellys mission to bring order and some discipline to what had been a very chaotic west wing. Rob porter is one of the few people there who has any past government experience, who is a professional in terms of working in the government, working in politics, and working with policy. And i think its one of the reasons why last night and again this morning john kelly was trying so hard to help save his job and keep him there. Hallie jackson, what explanation do you have for the fact that im sure youre hearing the same sorts of rumblings i am. Yeah. There is a lot of tension between john kelly and other members of the white house staff. I put together a quick list before we came on the air. People were critical about him calling the president uninformed on the topic of immigration. People thought he drew a little too much attention for his comment yesterday where he suggested dreamers were too lazy to get off their assess. And now its his name and obviously hes the man we believe to have had knowledge of rob porters past who yesterday said he was a man of impeccable integrity and credibility. Just how fraught is john kellys leadership of this very, very chaotic west wing . So, i do think that, nicolle, rumblings are different from pulling the trigger on any personnel moves. Anybody is subject to rumblings at one point or another as weve seen the last year. In particular some of the things you mentioned that have happened in recent days and recent weeks have put john kelly under a microscope that he tried to stay out of and tried to stay away from in large part in the beginning of his tenure. But think about when that started to change. Its when he started to take on i think more of a role in the policy piece of this on capitol hill. He was always involved sort of behind the scenes, but he took a more public facing role when it came to the immigration debate and the debate happening now. He was out in the public more, on the hill more, he stopped and talked to reporters, mentioned the daca recipients, dreamers too lazy to get off their haases, doubled down late into the evening. Keep in mind, this is im racking my brain here. Phil or nicolle, jump in. This is a crises of management for john kelly. Much was made when he came in, both privately to us to reporters and publicly. According to my sources as well, he was going to put some processes in place for personnel. That was the thing. He wasnt going to stop Donald Trumps tweeting and he said that from the very beginning. I think people had an unrealistic expectation he was going to be jumping on the phone and covering the button. There was talk about him being the chief of staff. Rob porters staff. This is obviously a problem, and this is the first time i think that john kelly has had to grapple with Something Like this in an area that is strictly his, all his. Always great when we get to snag you. Were going to let you go to other responsibilities. Msnbc contributor, journalist alicia menendez, contributing editor for the website bustle. Jason, an msnbc contributor. And conservative commentator and msnbc commentator charlie sykes. I can see your shot and moderating the way i do when i start the news. Im going to start with you, jonathan sykes. Your thoughts, your observations about what it looks like when a white house obviously doesnt have sort of command and control of the basic functions of government. I mean, this person, if he works on the white house staff in a normal white house, would have been investigated by the fbi. These sorts of things would have been brought to the attention of the white House Counsel and the white house chief of staff. Those systems either broke down or they knew about it and did nothing. Your thoughts . Yeah, either way its not a pretty picture. Its almost malfeasance without doing basic vetting. They either had no idea this was out there which is bad enough, or they knew and somebody decided to ignore it which in some ways is worse. But you think about this administration and how many of the problems have been created by bringing in this kind of, you know, just the cast of characters that donald trump has surrounded himself with. You mean a russian spy, a guy with russian sanctions from the dais of the inauguration . The list goes on and on. From steve bannon to carter page. You think about, you know, how much this has contributed to the dysfunction. But also there is a real blind spot here. If, in fact, these allegations are true, how could they possibly have overlooked it . And why would general kelly, when the questions are raised, not immediately recognize what the end game was going to be here. Alicia, i want to ask you about this episode in the context of sort of this moment in culture. You exist and report on that intersection. Since the me too Movement Really picked up steam, Donald Trumps more than a dozen accusers have sort of had a second round of telling their stories. Donald trump backed an accused pedophile in a special election. Now someone probably among the top three, four closest advisors to the president announced his departure today after news accounts surfaced that he had been abusive to his two former wives. What does the picture start to look like in the context of this moment where women are finding their voices, in a Tipping Point theyre speaking out . Do you see this as unrelated or do you think thats the backdrop . It absolutely is the backdrop. I think parts of the conversation is when we talk about me too, a lot of the attention is focused on the perpetrators of the misconduct and that is an important part of the conversation. But the bigger conversation is about institutions that allow this type of behavior to exist. So, the fact that you have a white house where possibly people knew about this, didnt take action, came to his defense, didnt want him to resign is almost as problematic as the behavior itself. Yeah, let me read this to you, nick, from last night. Washington post reporting, and i still have phil rucker so i want your thoughts, too, phil. Nick, the Washington Post reporting, senior white house official to resign after allegations of abuse. Senior west wing aide spent part of wednesday morning preparing for the fallout of his departure. Many senior officials including kelly urged him to stay. In light of what alicia said, anyone that urged him to stay that has reason to believe these are true is now kind of enabling someone who is accused of abuse to keep one of the most powerful positions in the world. Im reminded of a few months ago when john kelly came out to the press room and lectured the press about the good old days. Right. One of those things was when women were treated sacredly. This reminds me if women are untouchable and sacred and virtuous goes hand in hand to a failure to protect them from harm. It seemtz the white house was aware of the allegations in principle for many months. It seems a knowledge of the photographs which were published by daily mail only came out in recent days and that is only the point at which they decided they had to act. What did they do with those photos . They said stay, well defend you and protect you. Its really stunning and so many just to pull your thread through, so many of these stories have hit a Tipping Point when photographic indisputable evidence emerges. Yes, thats the problem. You remember a couple years ago the ray rice situation, you had this athlete there had been reports of domestic abuse, lee doesnt do anything about it until its visual. Why do we have to have a picture . Allegations arent the only reason you should lose your job. There should be an investigation. If there is an investigation, cant we just believe women . Cant we just believe the words women express . Does there have to be some graphic embarrassing photo before people are compelled to do the right thing . What really concerns me, whether its podsener or accusations by bannon and his old wife, the accusations against the president business his wives, you cant tell me you cant find other qualified people. The vast majority of women have not abused women. Exactly. Im pretty sure you can find people who dont have this in their background. It leads me to believe they dont care or that they dont believe women, and that theyre willing to keep these people anyway because there are other people that are not going to have that problem. Equally alarming is Sarah Huckabee sanders saying of the president s accusers, he won the election and that answers those questions. Its been litigated. Phil rucker, while we have you, where do things stand . This is the third day this week where we have written five different leads for this show. We are here also in a moment, another thing on john kellys plate is how and whether to release the democratic rebuttal memo which i understand the Justice Department and the fbi to be very eager to come out, to paint a fuller, more accurate picture of that fisa process. Where do you understand things to stand at this hour . Well, we are told it is under review. 9 president and the chief of staff at the white house have it. They have a few days here to decide whether to object to the release. We could expect a decision perhaps tomorrow, perhaps friday. And the kind of working theory based on our reporting is that he is likely to approve the release of the memo with some redactions. Now, its important to remember that the president approved the release of the republican memo without any redactions, even though the fbi requested some redactions. Were not sure yet whether the fbi has requested redactions on the democratic memo, what those redactions might be or what sorts of redactions the president might want to recommend. But the word is that memo is likely to be approved with whatever redactions the white house asks for. Nick, what do you think the stakes are for the white house in this fuller picture being painted . Two schools of thought emerging. One, the damage has been done to the fbi, some polls showing republicans now distrust the fbi more than they did before this whole episode. Another school of thought being that this was such a that the president s moved on to smearing the fbi agents who were one of his favorite targets. Where do you come down . Look, i dont think he has much to lose by allowing it to come out. I think the damage is done. He does most of the damage to the fbi on twitter and by transmitting his thoughts to fox outlets that have amplified his message. The debate over the memo is mostly taking place like in the intelligence. The real battle is over the Public Perception of Law Enforcement and its legitimacy. I think he is winning the battle against illegitimacy. John sykes, can you sort this out, the ongoing war with the Justice Department . Its going to do longterm institutional damage. I also agree he has been winning the messaging war. They have set that they have set a narrative, you know, for the last week or so. The memo itself that was released last friday was a , but the release the memo campaign was a success. And it continues, and it continues to be a success. Every single day they by the way, ive sort of spent some time in conservative media. And to say that he has succeeded in turning around the conservative media to get them to buy into his attempt to discredit and dee legitimatize the fbi is putting it mildly. Now, what longterm effects it will have on the mueller investigation, i dont know. But theres no question about it, when youre seeing numbers like republicans, 70 some percent of republicans losing confidence in the nations Law Enforcement institutions, you know, thats an extraordinary moment in our politics and its going to have longterm damage. Im going to predict one hes going to grow to regret. Phil rucker, thank you so far starting us off. When we come back remarkable reporting from the white house that reads like from the late great vince flynn, a spy in the biggest political story in america. And donald trump orders up a parade as the nations commander in chief, the pentagon is now working to make his wish their command. But is that how any of this is supposed to work . If you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, Little Things can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not an injection or a cream. Its a pill that treats psoriasis differently. With otezla, 75 clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months,. With reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. And the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. Otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Tell your doctor if these occur. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Other side effects include upper respiratory tract infection and headache. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. But through goodt times and bad at t. Rowe price weve helped our investor