White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday expressed hope that retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, the new White House chief of staff, will bring a sense of order and discipline to a White House that has seen significant top-level turnover and has tried to beat back persistent reports of internal chaos.
“I will do whatever the president and our new chief of staff, General Kelly, asks me to do,” Ms. Conway said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“If we could have protocol, pecking order, order, discipline, and a chief of staff that empowers the staff to succeed, I know that General Kelly has done that on the battlefield, I know that he’s done that as a chief military aide to former Cabinet secretaries,” she said.
“I know he’s done it as a Cabinet secretary,” she said. “And so we have great faith that that will be done.”
The president announced that Mr. Kelly, the Homeland Security secretary, as his new chief of staff late Friday. He will replace outgoing chief of staff Reince Priebus.
The announced shake-up came amid reported comments from newly-installed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci calling Mr. Priebus a “f—ing paranoid schizophrenic” in an interview with the New Yorker.
Ms. Conway said that Mr. Priebus should “hold his head high” and that many great things happened during his tenure.
In his first six months in office, Mr. Trump has seen the departure of his national security adviser, communications director, press secretary and chief of staff. He also fired FBI director James B. Comey in May.
The president also has lobbed frequent criticism in recent days at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the probe involving Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.
“So much has flowed from that recusal, and so much of President Trump’s agenda flows from the Department of Justice,” Ms. Conway said.
Ms. Conway said she wouldn’t comment on whether Mr. Trump is considering moving Mr. Sessions over to replace Mr. Kelly as Homeland Security secretary, calling it a “personnel question” only the president can answer.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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