Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow told KUSI-TV’s Paul Rudy that recent unsubstantiated allegations published by the Atlantic suggest former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a Gold Star father, remained silent as President Donald Trump denigrated his fallen son.
The allegations were discredited and denied by on-the-record sources who were present for the discussion in which Trump is alleged to have denigrated fallen troops.
Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general and Gold Star father whose son was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2010, took part in the above-mentioned discussion.
“What was very interesting that took place over the weekend, Zach Fuentes, who was the right-hand man of John Kelly … said that he denies the story [and] the story is not true, and he basically speaks for Kelly,” Marlow stated.
For the Atlantic‘s claims to be true, Kelly would have decided not to reveal Trump’s denigration of fallen U.S. military personnel.
Marlow continued, “What’s interesting here is that the implication with the Atlantic story is that Kelly — no fan of the president, who lost his son – who I believe stepped on a landmine and died in Afghanistan – a combat veteran and a Gold Star dad — did not speak up while the president disparaged dead troops. That’s the implication with the Atlantic story, and the fact that Kelly’s right-hand is saying it’s false, I think, makes the story purely baloney.”
Rudy asked how such comments could be kept secret and then be revealed weeks before a presidential election. “What made me roll my eyes is [that] a story of that nature — inflammatory comments of that kind — what are the odds that [they are] sitting dormant for that period of time and just conveniently popping up eight weeks in front of an election?”
Former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Zach Fuentes denied the Atlantic’s account of Trump’s alleged comments in an on-the-record interview with Breitbart News.
“You can put me on record denying that I spoke with the Atlantic,” Fuentes stated. “I don’t know who the sources are. I did not hear POTUS call anyone losers when I told him about the weather. Honestly, do you think General Kelly would have stood by and let ANYONE call fallen Marines losers?”
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton described the Atlantic‘s claims as “simply false.”
Nearly a dozen current and former Trump administration officials disputed the story.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic‘s chief editor and author of the article in which the above-mentioned allegations were made, did not provide any evidence of his claims.