Jeanine Pirro left some viewers scratching their heads after she insinuated Saturday that former President Barack Obama is somehow to blame for the Rob Porter domestic abuse scandal now rocking the Trump administration.
Though Porter has already resigned from his position in the Trump White House, the ongoing controversy is now being talked about as a national security issue. It has also called White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s handling of the former Trump aide — and of the rest of Donald Trump’s administration — into question.
Despite having worked as the White House Staff Secretary for President Trump since January 2017, Rob Porter never received full security clearance. On Thursday, he was forced to resign after news broke that he had allegedly physically and verbally abused two ex-wives, Jennifer Willoughby and Colbie Holderness. After reports of the alleged domestic abuse surfaced, Kelly issued a statement about Porter, calling him a “man of true integrity and honor.” However, it later surfaced that the Chief of Staff had allegedly known about the abuse claims months before they became public.
During the Saturday broadcast of Justice with Judge Jeanine , Pirro defended Kelly and instead laid the blame on an unexpected target: former President Barack Obama. “So, for everyone who’s looking for someone to blame, chill out,” the Fox News host said .
“You want to stop a four-star general who is running the White House, who believes in chain of command, who makes a decision within 40 minutes because you hate President Trump? Find another scapegoat. You might want to look at the last president.”
Pirro offered no further explanation.
Trump is on board for Fox News host Jeanine Pirro’s rebuttal to bombshell ‘Fire and Fury’ book https://t.co/6ojA3WESJj pic.twitter.com/FNgxNWdKSf
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) February 11, 2018
Later in Pirro’s show, Sebastian Gorka, another former Trump White House staffer, suggested that federal officials may have conspired to slow down work on Porter’s security clearance. Gorka, who used to serve as Trump’s deputy assistant, said that this may have been done to “make the Trump administration’s job harder and harder.”
“It might be a deliberate minefield put in place where they know somebody like this has skeletons in their closet and they slow roll everything to make things like this explode a few months later.”
Like Pirro and her dragging of Barack Obama into the Rob Porter scandal, Gorka offered no evidence to back up his claim.
. @SebGorka : “The president has to assert control over the system.” @JudgeJeanine pic.twitter.com/CWZUH8CfTg
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 11, 2018
Following her unexpected comment about Obama, Pirro immediately came under fire on social media.
“If Jeanine Pirro can blame Barack Obama for Rob Porter beating his wives, then I blame Jeanine Pirro for Donald Trump assaulting 19 women! LOCK HER UP!” Twitter user @EdKrassen wrote .
“I’ll say this for Jeanine Pirro. Every time I think she’s maxed out the insanity, she somehow manages to ramp it up a notch,” author/historian Kevin M. Kruse commented .
And the tweets kept coming:
Jeanine Pirro blames Obama for…
– Rob Porter – Wiretapping – Ross and Rachel breaking up – Falcons blowing a 28-3 lead – Her speeding ticket
— Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) February 11, 2018
?? @JudgeJeanine we can only love you. Any other response would be misguided. You teach us what bitter, twisted, batshit lunacy looks like. We might not know otherwise. And, for that, thank you. https://t.co/Pn7PHuhEcV
— Jeffrey Wright (@jfreewright) February 11, 2018
Fox News & Jeanine Pirro has confused everyone because they used the “blame-the-Black-guy” tactic in the Rob Porter scandal. They somehow blamed Obama for it, and it makes zero sense. This is called the “I’m white and I say so” strategy, and this is the basis for white supremacy pic.twitter.com/9iNzH9ij77
— Tariq Nasheed ?? (@tariqnasheed) February 11, 2018
Meanwhile, Porter’s inability to receive a full security clearance after a full year of working in the Trump White House has raised concerns. On Friday, a group of 12 Democratic senators wrote a letter asking Kelly and White House counsel Don McGahn to explain why Porter was hired and continued to have access to classified information despite accounts that they were aware of the domestic abuse allegations against the ex-Trump aide and of his failure to obtain a security clearance.