WASHINGTON—From the earliest days of Donald Trump’s presidency, the White House knew that former senior adviser Rob Porter’s personal life could pose problems, according to administration officials.

Mr. Porter told White House counsel Don McGahn in early 2017 that his ex-wives were telling damaging stories about his behavior, which he said were untrue. The White House accepted the explanation and didn’t press for more details, waiting instead for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to finish a background investigation to determine whether Mr. Porter would receive a permanent security clearance, the officials said.

After news outlets published allegations that Mr. Porter had abused his two ex-wives, including photos of one of them with a black eye, Mr. Porter resigned. Mr. Porter said in a statement this week that many of the allegations were “slanderous and simply false.”

In January 2017, before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the FBI began reaching out to Mr. Porter’s ex-wives and girlfriends to interview them as part of his security clearance. Colbie Holderness and Jennifer Willoughby, Mr. Porter’s first and second wives, respectively, said in interviews with The Wall Street Journal that they told the FBI about what they viewed as abusive behavior by Mr. Porter.

Ms. Holderness said she gave the agency photos of her with a black eye that she said her ex-husband caused on a vacation in 2005.


“They did ask me if I thought he was a blackmail risk,” she said. “I said yes.” She added: “I hoped something would come of it—that what I told them would be taken credibly.”

Ten days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Ms. Holderness shared with the FBI a letter from Mr. Porter’s second wife that discussed her concerns about his behavior and a set of messages she had exchanged with Mr. Porter’s girlfriend at the time. The girlfriend, who worked in the administration, had reached out to Ms. Holderness in December 2016 seeking advice on how to handle what she described as abuse by Mr. Porter, according to copies of the messages viewed by the Journal.

At about that time, Mr. Porter gave Mr. McGahn the first warning about the possibly damaging things his ex-wives may say about him. He had separately asked a friend to track down anything that could be harmful to his background check, according to people familiar with his efforts.

In June 2017, a White House office dealing with personnel-security issues received information from the FBI that included the spousal-abuse allegations lodged against Mr. Porter, an administration official said. Mr. McGahn has no recollection of the office relaying this information to him, the official said.


In July, the White House got a new chief of staff: John Kelly, who succeeded Reince Priebus, the official who had hired Mr. Porter.

In August—seven months after her initial interview—Ms. Willoughby, Mr. Porter’s second wife, said an FBI special agent emailed her asking her to sign an authorization to release the temporary protective order and police report she had filed against Mr. Porter in 2010 in Arlington County, Va. Ms. Willoughby said she had told the FBI about the documents in January and was surprised to hear from the agent about them months later. She said she granted the authorization.

The next month, the FBI contacted Ms. Holderness to ask if she had heard from anyone about Mr. Porter in the months since her interview. She said she hadn’t. Ms. Holderness had repeatedly asked Mr. Porter more than six years ago to cut off contact with her and hasn’t heard from him directly since she sent a letter to his parents “explaining the situation—that I was asking him to leave me alone, and he wouldn’t.”

In November, Mr. McGahn received a phone call from an ex-girlfriend of Mr. Porter who also voiced concerns about his behavior, the administration official said. In that call, Mr. McGahn heard allegations that Mr. Porter had abused his former wives, the official said. The White House position at that point was that officials would wait for completion of the FBI’s background check on Mr. Porter, the official said.


Over the next two months, Mr. Kelly was looking into the question of security clearances held by White House staff. He discussed the issue with Mr. McGahn, who said there was “an issue” involving Mr. Porter, the official said.

Mr. Kelly was surprised to learn that Mr. Porter, 40 years old, had been married before, but Mr. McGahn didn’t provide “a very detailed readout,” the official said.

After that conversation, Mr. Kelly spoke directly to Mr. Porter about his ex-wives, the official said. Mr. Porter told Mr. Kelly that the women were saying untrue things about him, the official said. While he told Mr. Kelly about general allegations, Mr. Porter didn’t specify that they involved spousal abuse, the official said.

Mr. McGahn didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mr. Kelly declined an interview request, and a spokesman said the president has full confidence in him.


In a meeting with senior staff on Friday, Mr. Kelly said he acted quickly when he realized the severity of the accusations. Two White House officials said they were uncomfortable with that account.

Two weeks ago, Ms. Willoughby said, Mr. Porter contacted her and asked her to take down a blog post she had published in April 2017 titled “Why I Stayed” in which she described an abusive relationship but didn’t name her ex-husband. Mr. Porter told Ms. Willoughby he was “concerned that people would find the blog post and use it against him,” she said. Mr. Porter didn’t say how he had come across the post from nearly a year earlier, but suggested a girlfriend had showed it to him, she said. Ms. Willoughby didn’t take the post down.

On Tuesday, the night the DailyMail.com published a report on the allegations against Mr. Porter, he contacted Ms. Willoughby again to ask if she would be willing to draft a statement on their marriage.

“I agreed, and we went back and forth for about an hour on Tuesday,” Ms. Willoughby said. “We were unable to come to language that we could both agree upon.”

Later that evening, Mr. Porter issued a statement of his own in which he called many of the allegations false. Mr. Kelly issued a statement calling Mr. Porter a “man of true integrity and honor.”

The next day, after the photo of Ms. Holderness with a black eye was published, Mr. Porter issued his resignation, over the objections of senior White House advisers who urged him to stay and fight the allegations.

By nightfall, Mr. Kelly issued a second statement saying he was “shocked” by the news. Thursday evening, in a letter to White House staff, Mr. Kelly wrote: “We all take matters of domestic violence very seriously.”

On Friday, referring to Mr. Porter, the president said: “We absolutely wish him well.”

Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com and Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com