FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that the FBI submitted a partial report to the White House in March on Rob Porter, whose position involved access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets, and completed its scrub of the ex-aide’s background in late July. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo FBI director puts responsibility for Porter on White House Christopher Wray said in a public hearing that his agency completed its investigation of the former presidential staff secretary last year. 
 
 FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the bureau completed its background investigation of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter last year, contradicting the White House's assertion that the FBI “process” was ongoing. 
 
 Wray told lawmakers at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the FBI submitted a partial report to the White House in March on Porter, whose position involved access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets, and completed its scrub of the ex-aide’s background in late July. 
 
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 Wray said the FBI completed a follow-up in November after one was requested and "administratively closed the file" in January. The FBI, he added, received additional information in February and passed that along, too. Wray did not specify the nature of any of the information it received about Porter. 
 
 "I'm quite confident that in this particular instance the FBI followed the established protocols," Wray said. 
 
 Porter resigned Feb. 7 following the Daily Mail's publication of interviews and photographs documenting his abuse of his two ex-wives. 
 
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 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Monday that the clearance process was "handled by our law enforcement and intelligence community" and that it "hadn't been completed" at the time of Porter's departure last week. 
 
 “Look, this is a process that doesn’t operate within the White House,” Sanders said. 
 
 On Tuesday, Sanders changed her position, saying that it was the White House security office, not the FBI or other agencies, that had held up final resolution on Porter's clearance status. 
 
 “The White House personnel security office, staffed by career officials, received information last year in what they considered to be the final background investigation report in November,” Sanders said. “But they had not made a final recommendation for adjudication to the White House because the process was still ongoing when Rob Porter resigned.” 
 
 Sanders said “both” she and Wray had been correct in their explanations because the White House’s personnel security office’s investigation had remained open even after the FBI’s had finished. 
 
 “We find those statements to be consistent with one another,” she said. “In the view of personnel security office, the FBI's July report required significant additional investigatory field work before personnel security office could begin to evaluate the information for adjudication.” 
 
 It is the White House personnel security office, Sanders said, that is responsible for making a recommendation on a given individual to the administration. She stressed that the office is staffed by “career officials," not political appointees. 
 
 Spokesman Raj Shah told reporters last week that a background investigation into Porter was ongoing until the point that he announced his resignation on Wednesday. 
 
 Tuesday's hearing marked the second time in as many weeks that Wray, who previously served in the George W. Bush administration, has crossed the White House. The FBI issued a statement in January saying it had "grave concerns" about President Donald Trump's intention to declassify a memo written by House Republicans concerning the agency's investigation of claims surrounding Russian interference in the 2016 election and contacts with the Trump campaign. 
 
 The White House has come under scrutiny after it became clear that Porter, as well as dozens of other officials, had been working without a permanent security clearance. White House officials were aware of at least the broad outlines of the accusations against Porter by two ex-wives before the news became public last week and led to his exit. 
 
 People familiar with the process for obtaining clearance said the FBI does not make any final decisions or recommendations and that the White House, specifically the counsel's office and the security office, would have been heavily involved in deciding whether to grant Porter clearance. 
 
 Bradley Moss, a lawyer who dealt with security clearances for White House staffers during the Obama administration, said it was unusual for the FBI to continue to work on the case after the July report was filed. 
 
 “It sounds like [the White House] had at least some sense something was wrong,” Moss said. “The question is who requested it, what did they know and what were they trying to clarify.” 
 
 White House officials familiar with events have said that chief of staff John Kelly was aware weeks before the Daily Mail report of issues with Porter's case. Moss added that White House counsel Don McGahn would also likely have been aware of the process. 
 
 An Obama White House lawyer told POLITICO last week that the White House counsel’s office was routinely advised of significant discoveries during FBI background checks for White House officials. 
 
 “If someone we were bringing on board had allegations of domestic abuse, we would have heard about it as soon as the FBI heard about it,” the attorney added. “We’re the customer. It’s not some privacy issue….That’s the way the process worked. They would let us know.” 
 
 Porter was among multiple West Wing aides who were still working on interim clearances, according to administration officials. 
 
 At Tuesday's hearing, director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said that people with temporary security clearance should get only limited access to sensitive, classified information, calling the process "broken." Coats did not mention any individuals. 
 
 “Sometimes it is necessary to have some type of preliminary clearance in order to fill a slot, but ... access has to be limited in terms of the kinds of information they can be in a position to receive or not receive,” Coats said. "It needs to be reformed." 
 
 Louis Nelson and Ayanna Alexander contributed to this report. ||||| CLOSE FBI Director Christopher Wray is providing new details that call into question the White House timeline leading up to the departure of former staff secretary Rob Porter. (Feb. 13) AP 
 
 White House Chief of Staff John Kelly signals photographers to stop taking pictures of him as President Trump met with members of Congress in the Cabinet Room of the White House Tuesday. (Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images) 
 
 WASHINGTON – The White House and the FBI differed in their accounts Tuesday about when White House officials knew about spousal abuse allegations against former top aide Rob Porter. 
 
 FBI Director Christopher Wray gave this sequence of events in Senate testimony: The bureau submitted a partial report on Porter's background check to the White House in March, completed it in late July and followed up in November before closing the file in January. 
 
 Porter's two ex-wives said they told FBI agents conducting the investigation that Porter had physically abused them. 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the White House Office of Personnel Security didn't consider the investigation complete until November — and it had not made a final determination on Porter's security clearance. Both the FBI and the White House said the agency sent additional information on the background investigation as recently as this month. 
 
 Pressed to clarify Tuesday, Sanders said she couldn't say when the White House learned about the domestic violence allegations. "I wouldn't have access to that information," she said. 
 
 The White House faces questions about how Porter was allowed access to some of the nation's most classified secrets as the staffer directly responsible for the flow of paperwork to and from President Trump. 
 
 The episode put a spotlight on White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who maintained that he took action against Porter immediately after finding out about the allegations. Sanders repeated that assertion Tuesday. "I can only give you the best information I have, and that's my understanding," she said. 
 
 Kelly told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that the Porter matter "was all done right." Tuesday, Kelly attended a meeting in the Cabinet Room and asked news photographers to stop taking his picture. 
 
 The White House explanation of the timeline draws a distinction between the White House Personnel Security Office — run by career civil servants in a nearby office building — and senior advisers in the West Wing. 
 
 "The FBI portion (of the check) was closed," Sanders said. "The White House Personnel Security Office, who is the one that makes a recommendation for adjudication, had not finished their process and therefore not made a recommendation to the White House." 
 
 Sanders said an overhaul of the background check process would have to come from the law enforcement and investigative agencies responsible for them. 
 
 Wray defended the FBI investigation to the Senate Intelligence Committee. He did not discuss the nature of the allegations in the background investigation. 
 
 "I'm quite confident that the FBI followed established protocols," Wray said. 
 
 More: White House says background check for Rob Porter was never completed 
 
 More: Questions that need answers after accused wife beater Rob Porter's White House resignation 
 
 In a statement issued through the White House, Porter denied the allegations last week. The White House announced his resignation last Wednesday but suggested he would stay on to help his successor. 
 
 Kelly issued a statement calling him "a man of true integrity and honor." Hours later, pictures surfaced showing one of Porter's ex-wives with a black eye, and Kelly issued a more critical statement saying he "was shocked" by "the new allegations." 
 
 By Thursday, Porter was gone. 
 
 Kelly said in that second statement that "there is no place for domestic violence in our society," but he added that "I stand by my previous comments of the Rob Porter that I have come to know since becoming chief of staff and believe every individual deserves the right to defend their reputation." 
 
 Porter's departure was quickly followed by David Sorensen, a White House speechwriter, also accused of domestic abuse. Sorensen denied his former wife's claims. 
 
 More: White House staffer Rob Porter resigns amid abuse allegations 
 
 More: Rob Porter scandal, explained: Who is he, why he resigned, what his ex-wives say, more 
 
 Trump tweeted Saturday that lives were destroyed by a "mere allegation." 
 
 "Is there no such thing any longer as due process?" Trump said. 
 
 Those comments cut against the current of a national movement encouraging women to come forward with their accounts of sexual violence in the wake of high-profile allegations against Hollywood producers, politicians, journalists and corporate executives. 
 
 Congress is working to address sexual harassment and assault allegations on Capitol Hill. The House passed a bill last week that would require members to pay settlements for claims rather than taxpayers. 
 
 Trump, himself accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct, expressed his support for others accused of abusive behavior, including former Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and former Fox News chief Roger Ailes. 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2o2OPsp ||||| FBI Director Christopher A. Wray on Tuesday contradicted the White House’s account of when the bureau informed officials about the status of a senior aide’s security-clearance investigation. 
 
 White House officials said that they were first contacted in the summer by the FBI about senior aide Rob Porter’s clearance. They also said that the investigation was never completed and that they did not know the extent of the allegations against Porter. He stepped down last week after accusations of spousal abuse by his two ex-wives. 
 
 But Wray, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the FBI submitted a partial report on his clearance in March and that the investigation was completed in July. Soon after, he said, the FBI received a request for a follow-up, which the bureau completed and provided in November. The FBI closed the file in January and then earlier this month, Wray said, the bureau received additional information and “we passed that on as well.” 
 
 “I am quite confident that in this instance, the FBI followed established” protocols, Wray said, speaking at the committee’s annual worldwide-threats hearing. 
 
 His remarks come as the White House has sought to deflect criticism over its handling of Porter’s clearance, saying it relies on law enforcement and intelligence agencies to run the process. 
 
 [‘Very turbulent’: Trump and White House consumed with turmoil amid abuse allegations] 
 
 Wray’s comments stand in stark contrast to how the White House has in recent days portrayed the status of the background check and when senior officials knew about the allegations of abuse against Porter. 
 
 At the White House briefing Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stood by the White House’s previous explanation of the matter, saying that the presidential personnel office was still reviewing Porter’s case when the aide resigned last week. 
 
 Sanders said that while the “FBI portion was closed, the White House personnel security office, which is the one to make the recommendation for adjudication, was not finished their process; therefore, they did not make a recommendation to the White House.” 
 
 Last week, Sanders’s deputy, Raj Shah, said the background check had not been finished and that the White House saw it as the appropriate forum for the allegations of abuse and Porter’s denials to be investigated. 
 
 “We should not short-circuit an investigation just because allegations are made, unless they could compromise national security or interfere with operations at the White House. The truth must be determined,” Shah said on Thursday. “And that was what was going on with Rob Porter. His background investigation was ongoing. He was operating on an interim security clearance. His clearance was never denied, and he resigned.” 
 
 That message was reiterated by Sanders on Monday. 
 
 “As I know Raj addressed last week, we let the process play out,” she told reporters. “It was ongoing, hadn’t been completed.” 
 
 Before Wray’s testimony, the White House was facing a number of questions about how Porter’s dismissal was handled, including the role played by Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. 
 
 Kelly has said that he took action against Porter within 40 minutes of learning that the allegations against him were true. But he issued a public statement lauding Porter on Feb 6, the same night the Daily Mail made public the abuse allegations, and according to people familiar with the matter, urged Porter to stay in his job. Porter did not resign until the next morning after the publication of photos showing his first wife, Colbie Holderness, with a black eye, which she says was the result of a punch from Porter. He denies the allegations against him. 
 
 The day Porter resigned, Sanders portrayed it as his decision alone. 
 
 “I think that was a personal decision that Rob made, and one that he was not pressured to do, but one that he made on his own,” she told reporters. 
 
 Sanders also said that “the president and chief of staff have had full confidence and trust in his abilities and his performance.” 
 
 The Porter incident has also led to renewed scrutiny of how many White House officials who may have access to classified information continue to work in the West Wing without a permanent security clearance. 
 
 At Tuesday’s hearing, Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, declined to comment on Porter’s case or those of other White House officials, including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who have temporary security clearance but still have access to classified information. 
 
 But in general, Coats said, people with temporary clearance should have limited access to classified information. 
 
 Josh Dawsey contributed to this report. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 Opinion: Rob Porter is my ex-husband. Here’s what you should know about abuse. 
 
 White House declines to provide detailed account of senior aide’s firing over abuse allegations 
 
 Why it matters that the White House can’t get its story straight on Rob Porter
– The Rob Porter saga re-emerged front and center in Washington on Tuesday, as FBI chief Christopher Wray testified before a Senate panel. The upshot is that Wray's account suggests the White House was warned about Porter's background months before it has previously acknowledged, reports USA Today. Porter resigned his White House post last week over allegations that he beat his ex-wives. Details and developments, including an op-ed from Porter's first wife: What the FBI did: Wray says the FBI submitted a partial report on Porter's security clearance to the White House in March and completed its investigation in July. The FBI then got a request for a follow-up, which it provided in November. Wray said the agency considered the Porter file closed in January, reports Politico. The contradictions: One big one is that the White House has maintained that the investigation into Porter was still ongoing, but Wray says it was over. Also, the White House has never mentioned getting even a partial report as early as March, reports the New York Times. White House officials have said they were first contacted by the FBI about Porter in the summer, per the Washington Post.