Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday that White House chief of staff John Kelly needs to give a public accounting of when he became aware of allegations of abuse about now-former White House staff secretary Rob Porter.

"I think in the end, we've got to hear from John Kelly as to what he knew, and we haven't heard that directly from him yet," Christie told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week."


"And I think the president needs to hear that before he can make an evaluation of competence."

Christie, who chaired President Donald Trump's opioid commission and has remained on the periphery of the administration, said that at the end of day, it comes down to competence and whether Kelly can "competently run the place." According to news reports, Kelly and other senior staffers may have been told by the FBI that there were concerns about Porter's past, which included allegations from both of his ex-wives about abuse.

"Clearly there was a breakdown in process," Christie said.

The White House initially defended Porter last week when the Daily Mail broke the story, but it soon began to backtrack, especially after one of Porter's ex-wives, Colbie Holderness, gave reporters a copy of a photo Porter took of her in 2005 with a black eye that she said was indicative of Porter's abusive behavior.


Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), himself a former White House staff secretary, expressed befuddlement that Porter was able to stay in his role during the time as the FBI reportedly continued to investigate the abuse allegations. Speaking on the same show, Maloney said that as staff secretary, Porter would have had access to some of America's most sensitive and classified information, since his job was to present documents of all sorts to the president.

"These guys knew in the first month of the administration about a fact pattern that would have permanently disqualified him from the job," said Maloney, who was one of President Bill Clinton's staff secretaries. "He never should have been in the chair."

Maloney added: "The idea that someone without a security clearance was allowed to be there in the first place, despite these allegations, and was allowed to stay there with no plan for getting him a clearance is not the normal process."