60 Plus Founder Decries “Gussied-up Gossip” Masquerading as News

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (February 15, 2018) – 60 Plus Association Founder and Chairman James Martin Thursday issued the following statement in response to recent reports regarding White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly:

“Having witnessed the steady degradation of journalism since I left the field in the 1960s the recent stories about White House Chief of Staff John Kelly represent the current nadir in news reporting.

“General Kelly is not “scandal racked.” He is the target of a malicious news media which seeks to scapegoat him in pursuit of a scalp from the administration, nothing more. He came to his current position long after the White House became aware of issues with Mr. Porter’s security clearance and this attempt to malign him has no bearing whatsoever on John Kelly’s character or the fine job he has done as chief of staff. These half-baked reports in the news are little more than gussied-up gossip littered with the predictable cheap shots one would expect from partisan congressional Democrats.

“While the establishment media seek to criminalize simple and unimportant oversights through journalistic malpractice, they ignore documentary proof of a political party paying money to gather information from sources connected to the Russian government in an attempt to disrupt the administration of an elected American president. Not even George Orwell could have foreseen such events.

“To those who suspect I am biased because I am an honorably discharged Marine Corps Sergeant I say, ‘You’re damn right.’ General Kelly is an honorable man and I will not shy away from defending a fellow Marine, or any other innocent person, who the media have singled out for relentlessly unfair treatment. I stand with John Kelly confident that millions of other Americans also do.”