White House counsel Don McGahn’s lack of action on the domestic violence allegations against former West Wing staffer Rob Porter has "raised questions" among law enforcement and officials from prior administrations, CNN reports.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the agency first reported the allegations against the former staff secretary in July. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that an internal "personnel security office" did not alert staffers to the report, and that senior officials didn’t know the full extent of the allegations until the Daily Mail published a photo of Colbie Holderness in February.
"That isn't reasonable," national security expert Mark Zaid told CNN. "I would be surprised that if in their partial report in March, the FBI either didn't include the photo or, at a minimum, reference they had photographic evidence of the domestic assault."
"I can't fathom it not being part of the completed report" given to the White House in July.
Experts have pointed to White House counsel Don McGahn as the official responsible for alerting the president and chief of staff.
"This would have been sent to McGahn’s desk as soon as the personnel office heard about it," an unnamed former administration official involved in hiring staff during the Obama Administration told NBC News.
"Usually the counsel’s office is very involved, but it’s not clear how much the current White House counsel’s office is involved," added attorney Brad Moss, a specialist in national security and federal employment litigation, who also said that most reviews of a position this high would not typically take as long as Porter’s did.
"A lot of us have been skeptical about why that would happen with the White House staff. They are supposed to be given high priority for the obvious reason that you need to staff the president properly," he said.
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