A Florida congresswoman never boasted about securing funds for an FBI building, a claim made by White House chief of staff John Kelly during his impassioned defense of President Donald Trump.
Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., defended herself Friday as video emerged that proves she didn't use a 2015 speech to brag about raising money for a federal building named for two slain FBI agents, as Kelly accused a day earlier.
Video of the nine-minute speech posted online by the South Florida Sun Sentinel proved Kelly wrong.
The tape shows Wilson thanking then-FBI Director James Comey and other agents and talking about the dangers of the job.
She also applauds her own efforts to speed along legislation dedicating the building in honor of Agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove, killed during a 1986 shootout with bank robbers south of Miami.
She said that her effort and that of other lawmakers "speaks to the respect that our Congress has for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the men and women who put their lives on the line every single day."
Kelly ripped Wilson on Thursday, calling her an "empty barrel" who "makes noise" and claiming she said "she got the money" for the Miramar field office.
He implied he and other service members were appalled by Wilson's self-congratulatory tone.
"A congresswoman stood up, and in a long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call, he gave the money _ the $20 million _ to build the building, and she sat down, and we were stunned," Kelly said during his press conference Thursday.
Embroiled in a heated back and forth with the White House over a condolence call Trump made to the widow of a slain Army sergeant, Wilson pushed back Friday.
She again criticized Trump for his phone call to the pregnant widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four Americans killed two weeks ago in Niger, saying it was "not a good message to say to anyone who has lost a child at war."
And she took umbrage with Kelly's defense of the president, saying the former general "needs to stop telling lies on me."
Kelly, who used his turn at the podium on Thursday to speak about his own son's death in Afghanistan, said he instructed Trump on what to say when he made the calls to grieving relatives.
"I feel sorry for Gen. Kelly," Wilson told CNN. "He has my sympathy for the loss of his son. But he can't just go on TV and lie on me."
Wilson was in the car with Johnson's family when Trump called on Tuesday.
She said Trump told Johnson's widow that "you know that this could happen when you signed up for it ... but it still hurts."
Johnson's aunt also said the family took that remark to be disrespectful.
"There's nothing to misinterpret," Wilson said Friday. "He said what he said, I just don't agree with it. I just don't think that's what you should say to grieving families."
Before Kelly came to his defense, attempting to clarify that he instructed Trump on what to say, the president flat out denied Wilson's account.
Late Thursday, he attacked her for listening in on the call. Wilson, a close friend of the family, was with the Johnson's as they Miami International Airport to claim Johnson's body.
"The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!"
White House sress secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Kelly on Friday.
"If you're able to make a sacred act like honoring American heroes about yourself, you're an empty barrel," she said in a statement.
