8 MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE - Porter had, before the age of forty, two bitter ex-wives, at least one informed the media that she had filed an emergency protective orc of whom he had beaten, and both of whom he had cheated on at talk- against him. of-the-town levels. During a stint as a Senate staffer, the married Porter The White House, or at least Kelly—and likely Hicks—had been aw: had an affair with an intern, costing him his job. His girlfriend Samantha of many of these claims and, effectively, covered them up. (“You usua Dravis had moved in with Porter in the summer of 2017, while, quite have enough competent people for White House positions to weed out t unbeknownst to her, he was seeing Hicks. “I cheated on you because you're wife beaters, but you couldn't be so choosy in the Trump White House,” s: not attractive enough,” he later told Dravis. one Republican acquaintance of Porter's.) The furor that erupted arou In a potentially criminal break of protocol, Porter had gained access Porter and his troubling gross-guy history not only annoyed Trump to his raw FBI clearance reports and seen the statements of his ex-wives. “He stinks of bad press”—it further weakened Kelly. On February 7, af His most recent ex-wife had also written a blog about his alleged abuse, both of his former wives gave interviews to CNN, Porter resigned. which, while it did not name him, clearly fingered him. Concerned about A publicity-shy Hicks—Donald Trump put a high value on associa the damaging impact his former wives could have on his security review, who did not steal his press opportunities—suddenly found her love | he recruited Dravis to help him smooth his relationship with both women. in the glare of intense international press scrutiny. Her affair with the d Lewandowski, Hicks's former boyfriend, caught wind of the Hicks- credited Porter highlighted her own odd relationship with the preside Porter relationship and began working to expose it; by some reports, and his family, as well as