White House Trump Chief of Staff Mark Kelly Shoved Ivanka Trump, Kushner Claims In Book

In his new memoir, Jared Kushner, son-in-law and former senior presidential advisor to Donald Trump, painted a brutal portrayal of John F. Kelly, Trump’s second chief of staff. Kushner alleged that Kelly showed his true colors by shoving his wife Ivanka Trump in a fit of “rage” in excerpts of the book.

Kushner wrote in Breaking History: A White House Memoir that Kelly behaved like a regular bully and harbored a “Jekyll-and-Hyde” demeanor. The former adviser indulged his and his wife’s shared distaste of Kelly, writing that although they believed him to be “consistently duplicitous,” and that “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 writes. “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. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”

Kushner recalls that Kelly visited Ivanka’s second-floor office an hour later to offer up what he describes as “a meek apology.”

Kelly claims that the incident never occurred, and in an email responding to Kushner’s depiction of the events, wrote, “I don’t recall anything like you describe.”

“It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happened,” Kelly 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.”

According to Kushner, Julie Radford, Ivanka’s chief of staff, overheard the apology as it was the first time Kelly had stepped into their second-floor corner of the West Wing. Radford confirmed to The Washington Post that she had witnessed Kelly enter the office and offer Ivanka an apology. Through a spokesperson, Ivanka also confirmed her husband’s description of the incident was accurate.

Kushner carries on with further transgressions Kelly made against his wife, accusing him of privately dismissing her, while publicly gracing her “with compliments to her face that she knew were insincere.”

“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 writes. “He would frequently refer to her initiatives like paid family leave and the child tax credit as ‘Ivanka’s pet projects.’ ”

Breaking History: A White House Memoir is set to hit shelves on August 23.