John Kelly Wiki
As each day passes, there seems to be another person added to, removed from, or transferred within the Donald Trump administrative team. An example of this is John Kelly, who went from being the White House Chief of Staff to becoming the Secretary of Homeland Security in a matter of months.
Kelly was a four-star general who served the U.S. military for more than four decades. Within days of becoming Trump’s Chief of Staff, Kelly showed Washington and the rest of the United States that he took his work seriously—by firing Anthony Scaramucci from his brand-new position as White House Communications Director.
Take a look through this John Kelly Wiki page for answers to the question “who is John Kelly?” and for some need-to-know facts, such as John Kelly’s net worth, and details about his family life.
In this article, we will see everything about John Kelly’s Education, Wife, Children & More.
#1. Who is John Kelly?
Kelly was born on May 11, 1950, which makes John Kelly age 67, as of this writing. He was born and raised in Boston.
In 1970, Kelly’s mother made him aware that his draft number was coming up, and he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. Two years later, he was discharged from his duties.
In 1975, however, he became a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps through Officer Candidates School. The following year, Kelly completed his studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. In 1984, he completed his Master of Arts degree in National Security affairs from Georgetown School of Foreign Service.
Nine years later, Kelly graduated with a master of science in strategic studies from the National Defense University.
In terms of his military career, Kelly is now a retired United States Marine Four-Star General and the former commander of the United States Southern Command. That position gave Kelly responsibility for American military operations in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
His previous duties included being the head of Offensive Tactics Section, Tactics Group; the special assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in Belgium; and the commanding general in I Marine Expeditionary Force.
All this vast experience from holding different ranks in the military and working around the world has given Kelly a lot of hands-on experience. This is what led Trump to nominate Kelly for the position of White House Chief of Staff.
After a few months on the job as Chief of Staff, Kelly was appointed as Secretary of Homeland Security. He replaced Reince Priebus, who had only held that position for approximately five months.
#2. John Kelly Family
John has been married to Karen Hernest since 1976. They had three children together: Robert, John Jr., and Kathleen. Robert and John Jr., followed their father’s footsteps into U.S. Marines Corps.
Robert was killed in 2010 at the age of 29 while leading a platoon of Marines in Afghanistan. Robert, who was a first lieutenant, enlisted in the Marines after completing his studies at Florida State University. When he died, Robert had been married to Heather Landry Kelly for three years. John Kelly’s wife created a scholarship in Robert’s honor, through the Marine Corp Scholarship Foundation.
John Jr. has continued to serve in the Marine Corps, after graduating from Florida State University.
Kathleen has worked for the American Red Cross.
#3. John Kelly Scandal
Kelly has been in the news for publicly supporting Trump’s actions regarding his phone call to the family of deceased Sgt. La David Johnson. The soldier was one of four killed in Niger during an ISIS ambush.
During the phone call, Trump allegedly said to the family of Johnson that the soldier “knew what he signed up for.” The family and their supporters say that it came across that Trump was being disrespectful toward the family, and that it seemed that there was no sincerity in Trump’s message of condolence.
The words that Trump said to the family came out of a briefing with Kelly. One would assume that Kelly would have sympathy for the Johnson family, since his own son died while on military duty.
It has not been revealed exactly what Kelly told Trump to say to the family. Trump ended up rephrasing Kelly’s message when he made the phone call.
The family, with the help of Democratic Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida, told their story about the phone conversation to the media. Trump responded to the accusations by claiming that the family and Wilson have been lying about how he treated the family during the call. This has been followed by more jabs back and fourth between Trump and Wilson.
Kelly has been defending the briefing that he had with Trump, as well as Trump’s behavior during the phone call with the family. Kelly added to the conflict by making false statements about the contents of a speech by Wilson at a 2015 dedication ceremony for a new FBI building. A video of Wilson’s speech proves that Kelly’s account of the event was incorrect.
There are also rumors swirling around about the details of the briefing between Trump and Kelly. It seems that more information about this scandal could come out in the near future.