Trump Says Chief Of Staff John Kelly Will Leave His Job At End Of Year

President Trump announced Saturday that John Kelly will be leaving his post as White House chief of staff at the end of the year, marking the end of a tenuous, sometimes tumultuous tenure that many believed would conclude months ago.

Mr. Trump announced Kelly's imminent departure on the White House South Lawn Saturday afternoon before departing to attend the Army vs. Navy football game in Philadelphia.

"John Kelly will be leaving, I don't know if I can say retiring but, he's a great guy," the president told reporters. "John Kelly will be leaving at the end of the year. We'll be announcing who will be taking John's place, it might be on an interim basis. I'll be announcing that over the net day or two."

The president added, "I appreciate his service very much."

It is unclear who will replace Kelly, although Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, Nick Ayers, has been lifted as a possible successor. Mr. Trump didn't respond to shouted questions as to whether Ayers would be the replacement.

Kelly, who joined the White House as chief of staff in July 2017 after the departure of predecessor Reince Priebus, spent months fighting to establish and maintain control of a White House marked by competing factions and complicated by a president who thrives on keeping everyone guessing.

For months, Kelly's departure appeared to be looming, as CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett reported in March, and in November. In July, The Wall Street Journal first reported Kelly had agreed to stay on as chief of staff through the 2020 election cycle, although whether he would actually last that long in the role -- a long time for any chief of staff but particularly for senior staff in Trump world -- was in question.

Kelly's departure comes at a pivotal time for Mr. Trump's administration, as special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation continues to hand down legal developments concerning people close to the president, and as Democrats prepare to take control of the House -- and the investigative powers that come with it -- in January.

Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general -- a qualification that made him attractive for the job to Mr. Trump -- strove to bring some order to a White House with relatively little government experience, and to a president who dislikes many of the routine aspects of governing.

Onetime Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described Mr. Trump's aversion to detail in an interview with "CBS News This Morning."

"It was challenging for me, coming from the highly processed Exxon Mobil, to go work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get to the details of a lot of things but rather says look this is what I believe," Tillerson said.

It was to that environment that Kelly attempted to bring order. Upon his arrival, Kelly also looked to ensure fewer people had direct access to the president in the Oval Office -- a move that frustrated some whose access was suddenly restricted.

What Kelly will do next is unclear.

Kelly had moments of his own, however, when he became the focus of attention or controversy. Here are a few of them:

Trump and Charlottesville violence

In public, Kelly, 68, occasionally let on his discomfort with his job at the White House.

Mr. Trump's response to the deadly violence that ensued from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2018 became an immediate test for Kelly, who had started as White House chief of staff days earlier. Photographers captured the still-new chief of staff hanging his head and looking down at his shoes as the president, from his perch in Trump Tower, blamed "many sides" for the violence that left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead.

"God punished me" with the White House

Kelly joked to Department of Homeland Security employees in March that leaving DHS and his role as DHS secretary for the White House was because "God punished me, I guess" -- humor that didn't go over well with the president.

Mr. Trump, as CBS News' Garrett reported, believed he gave Kelly a considerable amount of power when he arrived, and thought Kelly should remember and appreciate that -- not suggest he was cursed.

Death of La David Johnson in Niger

In October 2017, Kelly defended the president's call to the widow of Army Sergeant La David Johnson, after Johnson's death in an ambush in Niger. Mr. Trump, according to Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson, told the widow her husband "knew what he signed up for."

Kelly came to the White House briefing room himself to defend the president, criticizing Wilson for listening to the condolence call. But he also walked through with reporters what U.S. government and military officials say to the bereaved, a conversation he knew well, since the man who is now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Dunford, had appeared at Kelly's own door in 2010 to tell him his son had been killed in Afghanistan. And in recounting what Dunford had said to him, he repeated a version Mr. Trump's words to Johnson's widow, Myeshia Johnson, casting them in a different light.

"'Kel,'" he recalled Dunford said of his son, "'he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that one percent. He knew what the possibilities were because we were at war. And when he died...he was surrounded by the best men on this earth, his friends.'"

Rob Porter allegations

Kelly was thrust into the rare spotlight in January 2018, after issuing a statement standing by then-White House staff secretary Rob Porter when Porter was accused of abusing his ex-wives. Porter had worked at the White House on an interim security clearance for a year and had warned the White House counsel and Kelly that there might be problems with his background check.

In his initial statement, statement Kelly called Porter a "man of true integrity and honor." Exactly what Kelly knew about the allegations, and when, spurred questions and criticism.

In the wake of the Rob Porter fiasco, Kelly cracked down on the clearance process to help ensure White House staff weren't operating on temporary clearances. Porter and other top White House officials, including the president's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, had long been operating without long-term clearances while being privy to sensitive information.