John Kelly Says He Told Trump a ‘Yes Man’ as His Successor Would Lead to Impeachment

Washington: John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff who during his tenure made it clear he detested the job, expressed regret Saturday about leaving and implied that he could have helped stave off the impeachment inquiry threatening Trump’s presidency.

Kelly, who left barely on speaking terms with the president, said he warned his boss to pick a successor in his mold, meaning someone who would push back against him. “I said, whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that,” Kelly said, according to The Washington Examiner, which covered his remarks at a political summit it hosted in Sea Island, Georgia. “Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.”

Kelly left the administration last December and has joined the board of Caliburn International, the umbrella organization of a company that runs the largest housing facility for migrant children. Kelly has spoken out about his time in the administration on only a handful of occasions since his departure.

On Saturday, he did not mention his successor, Mick Mulvaney, by name. But his comments appeared to pin the blame for the impeachment inquiry on Trump’s embattled acting chief of staff, who said at a news conference this month that aid to Ukraine had been withheld because the president wanted to pressure the country to investigate his political rivals, only to later backpedal. And Kelly framed Trump himself as a careening leader who needed to be controlled by his aides.

“I have an awful lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving,” Kelly said. “It pains me to see what’s going on, because I believe if I was still there or someone like me was there, he would not be kind of, all over the place.”

In a statement, Trump disputed that Kelly gave him such advice.

“John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that,” he said. “If he would have said that, I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does.”

Annie Karni c.2019 The New York Times Company