During congressional testimony on Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray presented a timeline of when the White House was informed about red flags in Rob Porter’s background check process that conflicts with the talking points Trump officials have been using over the past week.
“What I can tell you is that the FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March, and then a completed background investigation in late July,” Wray said. “Soon thereafter we received requests for follow-up inquiry, and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November, and then we administratively closed the file in January, and then earlier this month we received some additional information and we passed that on as well.”
But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and deputy press secretary Raj Shah have repeatedly insisted that the background check process into Porter was ongoing when media reports surfaced of alleged physical and emotional abuse he had inflicted on both of his ex-wives.
“His background investigation was ongoing,” Shah said last Thursday. “He was operating on an interim security clearance. His clearance was never denied, and he resigned.”
During a press briefing on Monday, Sanders said “the background was ongoing.” During a Fox & Friends interview Tuesday morning, Shah said “what we know about Rob Porter specifically, and that’s the incident that everybody is talking about, is that his background check investigation had not been completed yet. It was still in the investigative process and it had yet to be adjudicated. Prior to an adjudication the White House is not going to step into the middle of the process and short-circuit it.”
Wray’s testimony indicates Sanders and Shah have been lying — the White House officials let a potential blackmail target serve in a sensitive role handling classified documents even after they were informed that he would be unable to get a security clearance due to the abuse allegations against him.
