“I don’t recall anything like you describe,” Kelly told the paper.
Jared Kushner Alleges John Kelly ‘Shoved’ Ivanka Trump After a Meeting, Calls Him ‘Jekyll and Hyde’
Jul 27th, 2022, 8:10 pm
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Jared Kushner alleges in his new memoir former Trump White House chief of staff John Kelly “shoved” his wife and the former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump following a contentious meeting.
According to Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Kelly displayed dueling personalities and flashes of anger. The Washington Post, which has viewed snippets of the memoir, reported:
In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner alleges that former president Donald Trump’s second chief of staff, John F. Kelly, was viewed within the White House as a bully with a “Jekyll-and-Hyde” demeanor who once shoved his wife, Ivanka Trump, out of his way after a volatile Oval Office meeting. Kelly denies the allegation.
In Breaking History: A White House Memoir, Kushner recounted how a “consistently duplicitous” man he identified as Kelly “shoved” his wife, but did not injure her.
“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office,” Kushner claims in the book. “Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello, chief.’ Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”
Kushner also writes Kelly visited Ivanka an hour later in her room and offered an apology that was accepted. Kushner described the apology as “meek.”
Kelly, who was contacted by the Post about the allegation, vehemently denied it.
He added, “It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happen… Would never intentionally do something like that. Also, don’t remember ever apologizing to her for something I didn’t do. I’d remember that.”
Kelly served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019.
In October 2018, the New York Times reported Kelly was involved in a dispute at the White House with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski:
An argument last February between the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and Corey Lewandowski, an informal adviser to President Trump, turned into a physical altercation that required Secret Service intervention just outside the Oval Office, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the events.
The episode, details of which have not been previously reported, is the latest illustration of the often chaotic atmosphere Mr. Trump is willing to tolerate in the White House as well as a reflection of the degree to which Mr. Kelly’s temper can be provoked.
Kushner’s memoir will be released August 22.
