A 2015 video of Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., speaking at the dedication ceremony of a new FBI field office in South Florida, directly and fully contradicts White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's key allegations about the Congresswoman, a South Florida Sun Sentinel report reveals.
On Thursday, Kelly described for the White House press corps the 2015 ceremony he attended with Rep. Wilson at the FBI building in Miramar, Florida, named after two heroic agents. The special agents, Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove, were slain in the line of duty during a 1986 shootout with bank robbers.
Kelly recalled the event : "A congresswoman stood up, and in a long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call, he gave the money, the $20 million, to build the building, and she sat down. And we were stunned, stunned that she'd done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned."
But the video released by the Sun Sentinel shows that Wilson never claimed credit for funding for the building. The $20 million used to build the office was authorized in 2009 before Wilson became a member of Congress.
Wilson did, in fact, push legislation to have the building named in honor of the two deceased agents.
But the video shows that she took little credit and instead offered lavish praise for Republicans, including then-House Speaker John Boehner, for taking extraordinary steps to get the legislation passed.
"Today it is our patriotic duty to lift up Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove from the streets of South Florida and place their names and pictures high where the world will know that we are proud of their sacrifice, sacrifice for our nation," she said.
She repeatedly noted the heroism of the deceased agents and praised the FBI for their work.
Wilson responded Friday to Kelly’s allegations to The New York Times: “I feel very sorry for him because he feels such a need to lie on me and I’m not even his enemy.
“I just can’t even imagine why he would fabricate something like that. That is absolutely insane. I’m just flabbergasted because it’s very easy to trace.”
Wilson and the White House have been locked in an ongoing battle over President Trump’s Tuesday call to the widow of a Green Beret Sgt. La David Johnson.
Wilson, a family friend of Johnson’s family for decades, listened on the speakerphone as Trump made his condolence call.
Wilson criticized Trump for comments he allegedly made on the call suggesting the widow’s son knew the risk of death when he signed up for the military.
At his press conference, Kelly acknowledged he advised the president to tell the widow that her late husband “knew the possibilities” of what could happen as a member of the armed forces.
On Friday, rather than acknowledge Kelly’s faulty recollection of Wilson’s 2015 comments, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted the chief of staff was sticking to his claims about Wilson’s 2015 speech. She took umbrage that the press was questioning a “a four-star Marine general, I think that that’s something highly inappropriate.”
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