White House legislative director Marc Short conceded Sunday there was likely a “lack of communication” on vetting former staff secretary Rob Porter regarding domestic abuse allegations — but said the process is no different than one used in the past two administrations.
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Short insisted the “FBI runs this clearance process.”
“I think in the process there was probably a lack of communication between different elements in the White House,” he said. “But keep in mind… this is the same process of the administration that the Obama administration used, the Bush administration used, and others.”
Short said if the bureau provides someone an interim clearance, “that means they've done an initial vet and said this person is okay, there's mitigating circumstances, we're going to continue to investigate. We had not received a final investigation,” he added.
“There's been people in the last two years who have had… investigations that come to your network and you say they could have done better,” he added. “I guess the White House has gone through that same experience.”
Short also declared Kelly did not offer to resign after the domestic abuse allegations against Porter were made revealed.
"John Kelly knows he serves the president and he will step aside any time the president doesn't want him to be there,” Short said. “But he has not offered his resignation. He has done a good job. ..."
And he also defended President Donald Trump’s refusal to release a Democrat-written rebuttal to a GOP House Intelligence Committee memo alleging FBI surveillance abuses that betrayed an anti-Trump bias.
"We're not afraid of transparency,” he said. “What the president said is that we believe [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.] intentionally put in there methods and sources that he knew would need to be redacted. And if we redacted it, there would be an outcry that says the White House is trying to edit it. So we said ‘take it back, work with the FBI, clean it up and we'll release it.’ ”
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