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The FBI just threw a wrench into the White House’s timeline on Rob Porter

The FBI directly contradicted the White House about the Porter investigation.

The FBI closed its investigation into former White House aide Rob Porter months before allegations that he’d abused his two ex-wives emerged last week, director Christopher Wray confirmed Tuesday, indicating that White House officials knew or should have known about the domestic abuse accusations months before the public found out.

In the week since Porter’s ex-wives, Colbie Holderness and Jennifer Willoughby, publicly accused him of physical and verbal abuse, the White House has been dodging questions about when officials knew about the allegations and what, if anything, they did about it. (Porter has denied all abuse allegations.)

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Despite the White House's general stance that the allegations came as a complete surprise, Holderness and Willoughby both say they told the FBI that Porter abused them when they were first contacted for his background check in early 2017. White House counsel Donald McGahn was reportedly made aware of the allegations at that time, the Washington Post reports, but declined to push for Porter's dismissal because of his Harvard education and "steadying" influence. And White House chief of staff John Kelly also reportedly knew about the allegations for months and still kept Porter on as staff secretary, despite later telling White House staffers he found out about the allegations only 40 minutes before Porter’s resignation was formalized.

In a press briefing Monday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to answer specific questions, emphasizing only that the president "supports victims of domestic violence."

So on Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon took advantage of a Capitol Hill hearing on worldwide threats against the United States, using his time to ask Wray some of the questions the White House has been trying to avoid.

“Was the FBI aware of allegations related to Rob Porter and domestic abuse?” Wyden asked. “And if so, was the White House informed this could affect his security clearance? When were they informed? And who at the White House was informed?”

“Well, Senator, there’s a limit to what I can say about the content of any particular investigation, for a variety of reasons that I’m sure you can appreciate,” Wray replied. “I would say that the background investigation process involves a fairly elaborate set of standards, guidelines, protocols, agreements, et cetera, that have been in place for 20-plus years, and I’m quite confident that in this particular instance the FBI followed the established protocols.”

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Wyden continued to press Wray, asking directly if the White House knew Porter’s security clearance could be affected by the accusations. Wray once again demurred.

“What I can tell you is that the FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March and then a completed background investigation in late July,” he said. “That soon thereafter we received request for follow-up inquiry and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November. And then we administratively closed the file in January. And then earlier this month we received some additional information, and we passed that on as well.”

Wray’s answer appears to contradict at least a portion of the White House’s official account of Porter’s background check: Last week, White House spokesperson Raj Shah repeatedly claimed the investigation had not yet been completed.

“The incidents took place long before he joined the White House,” Shah told reporters in a Feb. 8 press briefing. “Therefore, they were investigated as part of the background check, as this process is meant for such allegations. It was not completed, and Rob Porter has since resigned.”

Shah declined to clarify who knew what and when, but said that Kelly wasn’t “fully aware” of the allegations against Porter until they were made public in the press. When asked what “fully aware” meant, Shah said, “Well, I do know, for instance, that he had not seen images prior to the statement on Tuesday night.”

Kelly had initially issued a statement in support of Porter, telling the Daily Mail that he was “a man of true integrity and honor,” but later announced, not long after photos were published of Holderness with a black eye, that he’d accepted Porter’s resignation.

Correction 2/15/18: Due to an editing error, this article’s original headline incorrectly stated that the FBI told the White House about Rob Porter’s alleged abuse.