The F.B.I. learned about the allegations from the two women soon after Mr. Trump was inaugurated. But spokesmen and spokeswomen for the White House have insisted that no senior White House officials knew of the spousal abuse allegations against Mr. Porter until last week. They have said the career government employees at the White House personnel security office who processed the clearances did not tell them about the allegations uncovered by the F.B.I.
Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on Wednesday that he was beginning an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Porter’s security clearance, while six Democratic senators said they were concerned about whether there had been “any mishandling of classified information” because of them. They asked Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, for the names of other employees at the White House who were working “without being able to obtain a permanent security clearance.”
Mr. Gowdy, who sent letters to the F.B.I. and Mr. Kelly seeking information on Wednesday, said in an interview that he would examine the executive branch process of granting of interim security clearances generally and Mr. Porter’s case specifically.
“I am interested in how someone with credible allegations of domestic abuse, plural, can be hired,” he said. Mr. Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, called domestic abuse “a particularly insidious crime” that bears serious consideration in both the hiring and clearance process. He also said he had questions about an interim clearance process that “necessarily is not and almost by definition cannot be as fulsome as a full background check.”
He added that he was also interested “in what the F.B.I. learned and, perhaps connected with that but also perhaps separately from that, who at the White House knew what, when did they know it and what, if anything, was done about it.”
Even as Mr. Kelly’s past efforts to deal with security clearance issues at the White House were becoming clearer, his shifting public responses to the revelations of Mr. Porter’s past were coming under further scrutiny.
Three people briefed on the situation said that when Mr. Kelly learned that the accusations would be published in The Daily Mail last Tuesday, he was returning from a visit to Capitol Hill and spoke by phone to White House aides. Everyone on the call agreed that Mr. Porter would have to resign, the people briefed on the situation said, and a statement from Mr. Kelly was drafted to provide to The Daily Mail.
But Mr. Porter continued to deny the statements from his ex-wives. One aide in the discussions pushed back on the belief that Mr. Porter should resign, saying that these were mere allegations, and that if Mr. Porter had to resign over an allegation, other people could be forced from their posts any time an allegation was made. Other aides agreed, and argued for waiting for the story to play out.
At that point, they reached Mr. Kelly again, the people said, and he expressed agreement, telling them to make his statement about Mr. Porter more supportive. That night, The Daily Mail published Mr. Kelly’s statement calling Mr. Porter “a man of true integrity and honor,” and someone with whom he was “proud to serve.”
Soon after the story appeared, Mr. Kelly heard from someone with more detailed knowledge of the claims about Mr. Porter that more damning information was about to come out, and that the chief of staff should not put himself in the middle of the allegations. The people briefed on the discussions would not identify that person.
The conversation prompted Mr. Kelly to go back to Mr. Porter, this time telling him that he “knows what he has to do,” according to those briefed on the discussion.
Mr. Porter agreed to resign, and then told his staff that he was stepping down. But the next morning, on Wednesday, he told White House aides he wanted to leave on his own terms and help with the transition. Mr. Kelly agreed to the plan, those briefed said.
The scandal has placed Mr. Kelly’s job in jeopardy, leading Mr. Trump to complain privately about him and sound out confidants about potential replacements, including Gary D. Cohn, the director of his National Economic Council, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the majority leader.
Mr. Trump is said to seem more favorable toward Mr. McCarthy in some of his discussions, seeing him as someone who would be a more willing subordinate than Mr. Cohn might be, according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions. Yet in other conversations, Mr. Trump has indicated that Mr. Cohn is his pick.
Several of Mr. Trump’s advisers believe the president, who has a long history of quizzing aides about one another behind their backs without taking action, might just be venting. And his interactions with Mr. Kelly have remained mostly positive, according to two West Wing advisers who have witnessed them together.
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