(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former chief of staff John Kelly has made waves recently with his claims that Donald Trump meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office, he suggested that Adolf Hitler “did some good things.”
Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, previously accused Trump of calling veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.”
However, records show that Kelly has a perverse financial motive to smear Trump.
Indeed, after Kelly left the White House in 2019, he became a board member of Caliburn International, which operated the largest shelter for unaccompanied migrant children in the country.
In 2021, Caliburn reportedly split into two companies, Acuity International and Valiance Humanitarian, with the latter taking the child-migrant housing business. It’s not clear what Kelly’s role with Valiance is, but he’s still on the board of Valiance’s parent company, private equity firm DC Capital Partners.
Acuity has also reportedly received contracts in Ukraine, giving Kelly another reason to smear Trump. The firm held a conference on supporting Ukraine’s war just last month in Warsaw.
All roads lead to 🇺🇦Ukraine:
Acuity International: **John Kelly** and Michael Hayden (CIA):
"key stakeholders, including representatives from NATO, Ukrainian ministries, the U.S. Department of Defense, USAID" https://t.co/PUJfhXW8M4 pic.twitter.com/KEP5NcdX10
— ⏳Towhee 🌏☮️ (@amborin) October 24, 2024
“Maybe John Kelly had the grand idea to leak this non-story when he was flying back from Ukraine, because he saw how big the profit margins were going to be should Kamala Harris win,” remarked Natalie Winters on the War Room.
Despite Kelly’s dubious financial motives—or perhaps because of them—Kamala Harris has seized on his comments.
The Democratic presidential nominee said Kelly’s comments, less than two weeks before voters will decide whether to send Trump back to the Oval Office, were a “911 call to the American people” by the former chief of staff.
“This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who have worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room,” Harris told reporters Wednesday outside the vice president’s residence in Washington.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.