I Worked With John Kelly And Don’t Believe A Word He Says

As Donald Trump gains momentum to be reelected on Nov. 5, the anti-Trumpers have unleashed their last desperate wave of smears to stop him. Most despicably, but not surprisingly, former Chief of Staff and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly gave interviews to The New York Times and The Atlantic in which he claimed President Trump fit the definition of a fascist and supposedly made favorable comments about Adolf Hitler.

I worked in the White House with Kelly, and I don’t believe a word he says. He was a terrible chief of staff who dishonestly kept information from President Trump to pursue his own agenda, an unelected former military official substituting his judgment for the judgment of the duly-elected president. 

In 2018, after Congress refused to appropriate adequate funding to build the wall along the southern border to secure it against illegal alien crossings, Trump asked Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney to find money in agency accounts to build the wall. Mulvaney asked OMB Deputy Russ Vought and me, as OMB general counsel, to do a deep dive to find the money, and with the help of superb career staff, we found a ton of funding at the Department of Defense we could legally use to build the wall. 

But Kelly prevented Mulvaney from presenting this plan to President Trump. Several months later, in a meeting, the president said, “Mick, I asked you to find me money, and you haven’t.” Mulvaney responded, “I found the money, but I have not been able to brief you.” As the chief of staff, Kelly would not set up policy briefing time for Mulvaney to discuss the plan with President Trump. After this exchange, Mulvaney presented the plan, and the president authorized this strategy. 

This was not the first time I saw this type of insubordinate and corrupt conduct. Because of the way the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity was set up under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, I wanted to have the president shut it down and direct the Department of Justice to investigate potential election fraud. At the time, I was counsel to Vice President Mike Pence, who was the co-chair of the commission, and I had developed a list of previous presidential directives to the Department of Justice to investigate a specific matter so that when making this recommendation I could show it was well supported by law, history, and tradition. In a meeting with Kelly and others, I made this recommendation and shared the list of examples of presidents directing the DOJ to engage on specific matters.

Kelly said he would never show this list to the president and that if the president knew he could direct the DOJ, it would make Kelly’s life much more difficult. He said it was tough enough dealing with the president and he was not going to share the list or the recommendation. To my knowledge, President Trump was never made aware of these examples. 

John Kelly was not a soldier’s soldier — at least not while he served in the White House. His most-used skill was threatening to resign. As 2018 went on, it was increasingly common to see the chief of staff office dark and empty when Kelly had stormed off for the day. 

When President Trump named Mick Mulvaney as Kelly’s successor on Dec. 14, he also announced Kelly would stay through the rest of the year to help with the transition. We were getting ready for a government shutdown, which happened on Dec. 22, and Kelly was AWOL — nowhere to be found to help with this crisis. He checked out, in my estimation showing up perhaps one more day for any real work. 

As chief of staff, Kelly dishonestly tried to thwart President Trump’s policies. On the wall funding, he was fine undermining efforts to stop illegal aliens from flooding into our country and murdering innocent Americans, all to protect the bloated bureaucracy of his DOD. 

What’s even more offensive is that John Kelly is smearing President Trump weeks before the election to help elect Kamala Harris, the most radical, left-wing, and incompetent candidate in history. The Biden-Harris administration caused untold misery with policies that triggered the cost of living to skyrocket and invited more than 10 million illegal aliens into the country, including many who went on to commit horrible crimes against innocent Americans.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have made us a laughingstock on the world stage, feared by no one, with Putin invading Ukraine, and Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah attacking Israel and bringing the world closer to World War III. The Biden-Harris administration also weaponized the Department of Justice and other government agencies to attack and prosecute its ideological and political opponents, most especially Trump. All of this will only get worse if Harris is elected, and that’s what Kelly wants.

Under President Trump’s leadership, America had a great economy that helped all Americans, a secure border and lower crime, and energy independence. We were respected and feared on the world stage. 

Kelly was not only dishonest and duplicitous in pursuing his own agenda as chief of staff, but he has now chosen to help a radical, left-wing candidate who will destroy our country by smearing and lying about President Trump. Shame on him. 

The Marine’s creed is Semper Fi, or “always faithful.” President Trump has said Kelly’s wife told him her husband admired the president and would never say anything bad about him. How wrong this was. 

John Kelly has done a disservice to the nation by being dishonest and insubordinate, quitting on the job before he resigned, and now smearing President Trump to help elect perhaps the worst presidential candidate in history. 

Mark Paoletta served as a lawyer in the George H.W. Bush White House Counsel’s office and worked on the confirmation of Justice Thomas. He served as General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget during the Trump Adminstration. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America.