Ivanka Trump was assaulted by former President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, in the hallways of the White House after a contentious meeting with the president, an explosive new book claimed.
Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, said Kelly shoved his wife “out of the way” when she greeted him in the hallway in his forthcoming book Breaking History: A White House Memoir.
According to Kushner, Kelly was a bully with a “Jekyll-and-Hyde” personality but “only once did Kelly let his mask fully slip.”
“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office,” Kushner wrote according to the Post. “Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello chief.’”
“Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by,” he wrote. “She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”
Kelly reportedly later stopped by Ivanka’s office to give “a meek apology, which she accepted.”
According to the Post, Kelly has denied the altercation in an email.
“It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happen,” Kelly repotedly wrote. “Would never intentionally do something like that. Also, don’t remember ever apologizing to her for something I didn’t do. I’d remember that.”
Kelly served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019.
According to Kushner, Julie Radford, Ivanka’s chief of staff at the time, confirmed Kelly’s apology.
“It was the first and only time that Ivanka’s staff saw Kelly visit their second-floor corner of the West Wing,” Kushner claimed.
He also claimed Kelly would give Ivanka “compliments to her face” but then dismiss her to staff in private.
“Then the four-star general would call her staff to his office and berate and intimidate them over trivial procedural issues that his rigid system often created,” Kushner wrote. “He would frequently refer to her initiatives like paid family leave and the child tax credit as ‘Ivanka’s pet projects.’”
Kushner’s book is due out on August 23.
The Horn editorial team