Amid a plethora of troubles within the tumultuous current administration and the #MeToo era, a new scandal arose: sexual assault allegations against Rob Porter, the White House Staff Secretary.
President Trump hired Porter to be his staff secretary in January 2017, shortly after being sworn in. The FBI conducted a background check on Rob Porter. According to CNN, the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee stating that the organization had been made aware of the allegations against Rob Porter just seven days after Trump’s Inauguration; CNN reports that Colbie Holderness, Porter’s ex-wife, had sent the FBI pictures of herself in January, 2017, revealing the abuse and damage Porter had inflicted upon her during their marriage.
Wray’s testimony disputes the statement made by the White House, claiming that senior officials were not aware of the scandal until the pictures of Holderness were published by Daily Mail on February 6, 2018. The graphic pictures show the damage Porter has allegedly done to Holderness, his wife in the early 2000s.
Holderness wrote an article for the Washington Post in which she describes her feelings about the White House’s response to the surfacing of the allegations as well as her experiences with Rob Porter: “I had to take an extended leave from graduate school because I was depressed and unable to complete the work. When I finally left Rob [Porter] for good, my self-confidence was so destroyed that I was too scared to apply to any jobs other than that of server at a restaurant. It has taken me years to get my professional life back on track.”
CBS News reports that Rob Porter resigned on February 7, 2018, as confirmed by White House Deputy Press Secretary, Rob Shah.
In response to the allegations, President Trump tweeted “Peoples [sic] lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused – life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”, reflecting the president’s past of avoiding the issue of sexual assault and defending the accused.
