[Chicks]

The deafening, devastating sound of John Kelly’s silence
By Ruth Marcus

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ellys-silence/

The sound of John F. Kelly’s silence is deafening.

For President Trump, it is devastating.

The former White House chief of staff has remained quiet in the face of Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s report about Trump’s scornful comments about service members as “losers” and “suckers” — including Kelly’s son, killed in the line of duty.

Kelly is no Trump fan, not in the wake of his unceremonious firing and Trump’s derisive assessment. (“He got eaten alive,” Trump said Friday, suggesting Kelly might be a Goldberg source. “He was unable to handle the pressure of this job.")

But does anyone beyond the most reflexive Trump supporter really believe that a career Marine, a four-star general, a Gold Star father, would invent such a story — however it managed to make its way to Goldberg? Goldberg describes Trump’s visit with Kelly to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day 2017. They stood at the grave of Kelly’s son Robert, killed at 29 in Afghanistan when he stepped on a landmine leading a platoon of Marines. “Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, ‘I don’t get it. What was in it for them?’” Goldberg writes.

Does anyone believe that Goldberg — an experienced and well-regarded journalist, with a track record of scoops and a deep bench of military sources — would make this up or run it without fully checking? Full disclosure: I’ve known Goldberg for more than 30 years, since he was an intern at The Post, and I have complete confidence in his professionalism. A credibility contest between Trump and Goldberg is no contest at all.

Nonetheless, if Kelly’s choice is silence, it is hard to interpret that as anything but tacit confirmation. If Goldberg were telling a false story about Kelly and his son, surely Kelly would offer some correction. Kelly does not often speak publicly of his son’s death, but he has done so in terms that are the compelling opposite of Trump’s transactional worldview.