Pressure is building on White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after he responded to allegations of domestic abuse by his right hand man, Rob Porter, by releasing a statement defending him as “a man of true integrity and honor.” As my colleague Gabriel Sherman reported yesterday, other staffers were appalled by Kelly’s statement, which was drafted in part by Porter’s girlfriend, White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. “It’s beyond disbelief. Everyone is trying to figure out why Kelly is leading the charge to save him,” one former West Wing official said. Top White House officials were aware for months that the F.B.I. had delayed granting Porter security clearance after uncovering his alleged history of abuse.

Kelly backtracked Wednesday afternoon, as images of the alleged abuse surfaced in the press, saying he was “shocked” by the “new allegations,” and that there is “no place for domestic violence in our society.” Yet he stood by his initial defense of the Porter he had “come to know since becoming chief of staff, and believe[s] every individual deserves the right to defend their reputation.” Two White House staffers also attempted to insulate Kelly by telling The New York Times that Porter had “misled” Kelly and other senior staff about the seriousness of the claims against him.

Kelly, who was brought in to impose military discipline on the West Wing and control the flow of information to the president, has been on shaky ground for months, following a series of scuffles with Donald Trump that prompted the president to consider ousting him. “I’ve got another nut job here who thinks he’s running things,” Trump fumed to one friend, according to Sherman. A second source confirmed that Trump has vented about Kelly, mentioning one call in which Trump said, “This guy thinks he’s running the show.” (A White House official said “it’s categorically false that Trump is unhappy with Kelly. He’s only ever referred to him as the general, tough, can be rough, and commands respect.”)

The president’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, is allegedly playing a central role in the search to replace Kelly, quietly field-testing new candidates for the job. The trouble, as the Times’s Maggie Haberman tweeted on Wednesday, is that there are no obvious candidates to take over the White House’s most unenviable job. “Trump is continuing to tell people he is frustrated with Kelly, while folks in White House don't believe he'll ever make a change, per three people close to Trump.”

While Kelly was initially hailed in the press as a moderate and a professional who might finally bring order to an unruly White House, his prominence in the media spotlight—and a number of unforced errors—have cast him in an increasingly negative light. Earlier this week, Kelly made a series of disparaging comments about undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, saying on Tuesday that many qualified undocumented immigrants who hadn’t signed up for DACA “were too lazy to get off their asses.” On Thursday, Politico reported that Kelly has yet to tap an official replacement for Kirstjen Nielsen, who served as his deputy after following him to the West Wing last summer, because he has struggled to find an adequate replacement. Given the trouble with Porter, and his own tenuous job prospects, the possibility of further staff shake-ups seems inevitable.