Washington • Then-White House staff secretary Rob Porter was the gatekeeper to President Donald Trump, but more importantly, he served as a watchdog to halt “dangerous” decisions.
Porter, a former top aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch who resigned in February after allegations were unearthed of prior spousal abuse, stopped the flow of some documents to the Oval Office and pushed back on some of Trump’s incendiary impulses, according to the new book “Fear: Trump in the White House” by famed journalist Bob Woodward.
The author writes that Porter and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn helped stave off some of Trump’s attempts to end free-trade agreements, even to the point of stealing paper off the Resolute Desk so the president didn’t see them.