Former White House official says no one urges him to overturn security recommendations

The Democrats on the committee also blamed Mr. Kline for removing solvency checks during the security clearance process, but he maintained the policy, according to two people aware of his testimony, confirming the first details reported in Politico.

Republicans, for their part, accused the Democrats of creating a political coup to slander the White House. Kline, for his part, told the panel that his character had been "murdered" in the media.

"Democrats have used only one witness, Trish Newbold, to claim to have conducted an investigation and slander the White House by raising false alarms about our national security," said in a statement the representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and the Republican of rank of the committee. "We have now heard from Mr. Kline and learned that neither the President, nor the Chief of Staff, nor any other White House official has attempted to influence his decisions with respect to a request for assistance. 39, security clearance. "

Mrs Newbold, who is suffering from a rare form of dwarfism, has accused Kline of reprisals against her and of discrimination in the workplace, of moving files out of her reach and refusing to provide her with a means of to access it. On Wednesday, Kline told Congressional investigators that he had moved the records, but not intentionally, and had described Ms. Newbold as a "delicate" employee, according to two congressional congressional staff members with direct knowledge. of his testimony.

On Thursday afternoon, Ms. Newbold, who claimed that Mr. Kline had deliberately moved the files, accused his former supervisor of lying to lawmakers.

"He denied putting files out of my reach?" Said Ms. Newbold in a message relayed by her lawyer, Edward Passman. "So, he lied to Congress?"

Mr. Passman testified that his client did not know why Mr. Kline would have rejected the security clearance recommendations – and that his motives were not political. Ms. Newbold, he said, continued to be troubled by Mr. Kline's policy of eliminating solvency checks, one of the first ways in which managers can determine if a person is likely to foreign influences or blackmail.

"It only acts on behalf of national security," said Mr. Passman. "She does not want to get involved in this back and forth."