The White House knew for a year that former staff secretary Rob Porter was a wife beater.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

White House Counsel Donald McGahn knew one year ago that staff secretary Rob Porter’s ex-wives were prepared to make damaging accusations about him but allowed him to serve as an influential gatekeeper and aide to President Trump without investigating the accusations, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Chief of Staff John F. Kelly learned this fall about the allegations of spousal abuse and that they were delaying Porter’s security clearance amid an ongoing FBI investigation. But Kelly handed Porter more responsibilities to control the flow of information to the president. 

Porter, who denied the “vile” allegations, resigned Wednesday after the ex-wives’ accounts of years of verbal and physical abuse were published, along with graphic pictures of Colbie Holderness, his first wife, bruised from what she said was a punch to the face. 

The episode has thrust Trump’s senior-most aides, many of whom have already been embroiled in controversy related to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, into yet another crisis. 

McGahn and other West Wing officials are under increasing pressure to explain why Porter was kept in a key role in which he had access to classified information and helped determine which articles and policy proposals made it to the president’s desk while top Trump officials were aware for months of at least some of the serious allegations against him.

Not only is it upsetting to learn that the Trump White House did not seem to have a problem with a serial abuser, during yesterday's White House press conference we learned that if one of Porter's victims had not provided photographic evidence that he would likely still have a job.

Get a load of this.

As you can see around the 3:25 mark a reporter asks White House spokesman Raj Shah what changed about their understanding of the charges besides the photographic evidence, and while Shah attempts to skirt that question, his response makes it clear that the photos are what really doomed Porter.

Which essentially means that this White House does not believe women when they make accusations of physical abuse or sexual assault, unless they provide pictures.

So by those standards when it comes to the many Trump accusers the official defense would be "pictures, or it didn't happen."