Report: Secret Service Had to Break Up West Wing Fight

Chief of staff John Kelly apparently had physical confrontation with Corey Lewandowski
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 23, 2018 8:11 AM CDT
Report: Secret Service Had to Break Up West Wing Fight
White House chief of staff John Kelly listens to a presentation by White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow during a Cabinet meeting.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Tempers flare in the current West Wing as in others, but the New York Times reports on a particularly nasty confrontation this year that required the intervention of the Secret Service. By the newspaper's account of the "near brawl," chief of staff John Kelly got physical with informal Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski just outside the Oval Office in February. Kelly first called for someone to remove Lewandowski from the building, then reportedly grabbed Lewandowski's collar and tried to shove him against a wall as the two men began arguing. Secret Service agents arrived, and the confrontation ended.

All of this reportedly took place while President Trump was inside the Oval Office. Kelly and Lewandowski had both just been in there, too, and the Times says Kelly criticized Lewandowski in front of the president for making money off the president's re-election super PAC. The ill will continued as their meeting with Trump ended. The newspaper presents the story in the context of Kelly's famously hot temper, and Axios notes that he scuffled with a Chinese security official in Beijing last year. (Kelly is apparently not afraid to mix it up with John Bolton, either.)

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