The Defense Department has opened an investigation to explain how about 50 ISIS-affiliated fighters were able to ambush a 12-man Green Beret-led team and why the team lacked sufficient support to ward off the attack.
The swirling story culminated in a remarkable moment for the Trump administration on Thursday: Chief of staff John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, stepped into the White House press briefing room to defend his boss' handling of deaths in Niger.
Kelly described what happens to fallen soldiers and explained how the President came to tell a widow that her husband knew what he got into when he signed up to serve.
Kelly's remarks were the crescendo in an ongoing saga over the deaths in Niger. But it was the dozen days of silence from the President that has led to questions about the White House's attempts to handle the incident.
Trump first weighed in on the attack 12 days after the soldiers were ambushed, letting his spokespeople and the Defense Department take the lead.
The President, a very prolific Twitter user, never tweeted about the attack -- the deadliest US military exchange of his presidency. In the meantime, Trump used his preferred social media platform to lambast fellow Republicans, the NFL and the media.