Although Trump White House officials have tried to claim that they were not aware of the full extent of allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter, FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday said that his agency finished its background investigation into Porter all the way back in July.
When asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) about the background check on Porter, Wray outlined how the FBI went about investigating potential issues that had prevented him from obtaining a full security clearance.
"The FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March, and then a completed background investigation in late July that soon thereafter we received requests for follow-up inquiry, and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November and we administratively closed the file in January," Wray said. "Then earlier this month, we received some additional information, and we passed that on as well."
A new report from Politico on Tuesday claimed that White House officials had tried to arrange for an off-the-record meeting for Porter to deny allegations of spousal abuse to reporters even after a photograph of his wife with a black eye had been published by a British tabloid.
Despite this, the White House has tried to claim that it acted swiftly and decisively in firing Porter, even though it had been warned about the FBI about problems in granting him a security clearance months before.
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