Ivanka and Jared Reportedly Pointed Fingers at John Kelly for NYT Op-Ed
“although they blame Kelly’s deputy, Zachary Fuentes, for doing the actual writing.”
“Jared and Ivanka have told people they suspect this because Kelly is the only one with an ego so large as to have convinced himself that he’s saving the country from Trump, which was one of the op-ed’s principal arguments.”
The same characterization (inflated ego) was formerly applied to Al Haig after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, and earlier during the negotiations to get Nixon out the door. That’s a fairly close parallel to Watergate. Haig was also a general, and was also a chief of staff – in his case to two different Presidents. I suppose he thought he was saving the country from Nixon.
Only one problem with this analysis; Kelly issued this statement about the book and it’s claims, which pretty much affects this claim – “While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility,” Defense Secretary General James Mattis said of Bob Woodward’s upcoming book. “The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward’s book were never uttered by me or in my presence.”
In Kelly’s case, that doesn’t sound like a denial at all. It sounds like Kelly’s bullshitting around the topic with general statements to avoid lying, so he can later say “I never said …”
If he really wanted to deny it, he could issue a direct statement, as Mattis did.
Actually, I’m pretty sure he was ‘just’ a Colonel at the time, which was something Kissinger mocked him for.
Haig, in his initial position in the Nixon White House, the top assistant to Kissinger, was still an active General.
The parallels with Haig go further than that. First, Kissinger routinely ignored Nixon’s orders.
In regards to Haig, Nixon was known to ‘think out loud’ throughout his Presidency and he was especially flying off the handle by the time Haig became Chief of Staff.
There is a thoroughly debunked but still relatively popular theory that Nixon demanded the break in of the DNC headquarters at Watergate but didn’t really mean it but that Liddy and Howard Hunt didn’t realize they were supposed to ignore it.
Anyway, the story is that things got so bad at the White House that Haig issued a directive: if Nixon orders something that you think is either illegal or insane ignore it and assume Nixon didn’t mean it. If Nixon ever brings it up again, don’t carry it out right away, but first come to me.