White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly will exit his post by the end of the year. During his tenure, Kelly has contributed to the administration’s perpetual disrespect of Black women, including Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.). He made up a lie about her.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) tweeted Kelly needs to apologize to Wilson before he leaves:
Before General Kelly steps down, I hope he will offer a long overdue apology to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for lying about her in the press. https://t.co/1IZBcfmDsi
Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) December 9, 2018
In October 2017, The White House worked aggressively to discredit Wilson, who criticized Trump over a military condolence call to the family of Sgt. La David T. Johnson after he was killed in Niger. Johnson’s widow, Myesia, said Trump didn’t even remember her husband’s name.
“The president said that ‘he knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyway,'” Johnson said in 2017.
“And it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he couldn’t remember my husband’s name.”
Wilson, a close friend of the family, was in the car when Trump called.
Amid the controversy, Kelly, in the White House briefing room, made false claims to the press about Wilson regarding her speech at a 2015 dedication of an FBI building in Florida. He portrayed her as a grandstanding politician.
Kelly said Wilson, “stood up there and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money the $20 million to build the building. And she sat down.”
A video actually proved that Kelly was flat-out lying. The women of the Congressional Black Caucus issued a statement demanding Kelly to apologize to Wilson. He has refused.
Both Kelly and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders referred to Wilson as an “empty barrel.”
Wilson said that, over the past year, she has received death threats and nooses have been sent to her through the mail.
“I think he made it very clear when he was asked by the media over and over and he said that he would never apologize,” Wilson told The Miami Herald.
“I think my concern was when he attempted to slander me and to impugn my integrity as a sitting member of Congress when he went to the White House briefing room and actually spoke about it to the American people.”
Wilson said that Kelly, a former career four-star general, has lost all of his stars since working in the White House.
“It started with me, but there were so many other instances where he was not this man… that everyone expected him to be,” she said. ”
“He lost all of his stars, all four stars through many more instances that involved racism, misogyny and immigration. General Kelly needs counseling from a pastor or someone who can help him ask for forgiveness from the nation for all of his insults, not just to me but to the Dreamers who he said were lazy.”
Reader Question: What’s your opinion of John Kelly’s tenure as chief of staff
