After Donald Trump left the White House, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the man who served as the Republican president’s chief of staff for 17 months, has struggled to contain his contempt for his former boss. Over the last couple of years, Kelly has accused Trump of, among other things, “poisoning” people’s minds, having “serious character issues,” and not being “a real man.”
But even more important than Kelly’s assessment of the former president’s character are the concerns he’s raised about Trump’s abuses while in office. Last fall, the week before Thanksgiving, Kelly told The New York Times that Trump, during his presidency, told his chief of staff to use the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department to target his critics and perceived political foes.
The Times’ report went on to note, “Mr. Kelly said he made clear to Mr. Trump that there were serious legal and ethical issues with what he wanted.” The then-president “regularly” made the demands anyway, leading Kelly to remind his boss what he wanted “was not just potentially illegal and immoral but also could blow back on him.”
The significance of the report did not linger — it was overshadowed by a series of other Trump scandals — but Kelly’s allegations struck me as incredibly important. In the midst of Republican hysterics about the Biden White House “weaponizing” and “politicizing” federal law enforcement — allegations that appear to have no basis in fact — here was the former president’s longest serving chief of staff explaining on the record that Trump engaged in the precise abuse that he’s falsely accused his successor of engaging in.
Over the weekend, the allegations returned to the fore, and for good reason. The New York Times reported on Saturday:
John F. Kelly, who served as former President Donald J. Trump’s second White House chief of staff, said in a sworn statement that Mr. Trump had discussed having the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies investigate two F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. Kelly said that his recollection of Mr. Trump’s comments to him was based on notes that he had taken at the time in 2018. Mr. Kelly provided copies of his notes to lawyers for one of the F.B.I. officials, who made the sworn statement public in a court filing.
The court filing relates to a civil case we discussed late last week: Peter Strzok a former senior FBI official who helped lead the initial probe of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, is currently suing the bureau, arguing that he was wrongfully terminated. As part of the case, Strzok and his lawyers intend to depose the former president, asking whether the Republican was involved in his firing.
What does this have to do with Kelly’s allegations? According to the retired general, Trump sought to use federal law enforcement against several perceived foes — including Strzok. It was against this backdrop that Kelly said under oath that Trump discussed using powerful federal agencies to go after the former senior FBI official. What’s more, according to the Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Kelly has contemporaneous notes related to the incident. Not to put too fine a point on this, but it’s not every day when a former White House chief of staff implicates a former president — under penalty of perjury — in an impeachable offense. For what it’s worth, a Trump spokesperson responded to the allegations by saying the retired general is a “psycho,” the same label the former president has applied to special counsel Jack Smith.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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