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Morning Joe’ bans Trump aide Kellyanne Conway
They’ll just have to book alternative guests.
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway is no longer welcome on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski declared Wednesday — blasting the Trump aide as “not credible anymore.”
“At times in recent days, Kellyanne Conway has struggled to be on the same page, to say the least, as the rest of the staff in the White House,” Brzezinski said, citing Conway’s contradictory TV interviews on short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn’s exit.
“We know for a fact that she tries to book herself on this show — I won’t do it. Because I don’t believe in fake news, or information that is not true ... every time I’ve ever seen her on television, something’s askew, off or incorrect.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough, echoing an argument he’d made on the show one day earlier, added that Conway was “out of the loop” and not privy to “key meetings” in the White House.
“She’s not briefed,” Scarborough said, dialing back a previous assertion that Conway “lies.” “She’s just saying things just to get in front of the TV set and prove her relevance, because behind the scenes, she’s not in these meetings.”
In case the hosts’ policy on Conway wasn’t abundantly clear, Brzezinski later spelled it out: “Kellyanne Conway does not need to text our show, at least as long as I’m on it,” she stated flatly. “Because it’s not happening here.”
“Morning Joe” — reportedly part of President Trump’s cable news diet — isn’t the only TV presence to sour on Conway. CNN passed on booking her one Sunday earlier this month over “credibility” concerns.
Conway famously coined the phrase “alternative facts” last month when faced with easily disprovable falsehoods about President Trump’s inauguration crowd size. Weeks later, she cited an imaginary “Bowling Green massacre” to justify the President’s travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries.
Amid a barrage of negative headlines Tuesday — Matt Lauer, in a tough “Today” show interview, insisted Conway’s narrative on Flynn “makes no sense,” and the government ethics watchdog called for a White House investigation into her advertising Ivanka Trump’s fashion line on TV last week — the counselor stayed positive on Twitter.
“I serve at the pleasure of @potus. His message is my message. His goals are my goals,” she wrote. “Uninformed chatter doesn’t matter.”
Conway’s account also shared an encouraging tweet from a white nationalist fan Tuesday afternoon, replying, “Love you back.” She later claimed she didn’t know who had accessed her account.
SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/‘morning-joe’-bans-trump-aide-kellyanne-conway/ar-AAmYGcY?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
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They’ll just have to book alternative guests.
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway is no longer welcome on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski declared Wednesday — blasting the Trump aide as “not credible anymore.”
“At times in recent days, Kellyanne Conway has struggled to be on the same page, to say the least, as the rest of the staff in the White House,” Brzezinski said, citing Conway’s contradictory TV interviews on short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn’s exit.
“We know for a fact that she tries to book herself on this show — I won’t do it. Because I don’t believe in fake news, or information that is not true ... every time I’ve ever seen her on television, something’s askew, off or incorrect.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough, echoing an argument he’d made on the show one day earlier, added that Conway was “out of the loop” and not privy to “key meetings” in the White House.
“She’s not briefed,” Scarborough said, dialing back a previous assertion that Conway “lies.” “She’s just saying things just to get in front of the TV set and prove her relevance, because behind the scenes, she’s not in these meetings.”
In case the hosts’ policy on Conway wasn’t abundantly clear, Brzezinski later spelled it out: “Kellyanne Conway does not need to text our show, at least as long as I’m on it,” she stated flatly. “Because it’s not happening here.”
“Morning Joe” — reportedly part of President Trump’s cable news diet — isn’t the only TV presence to sour on Conway. CNN passed on booking her one Sunday earlier this month over “credibility” concerns.
Conway famously coined the phrase “alternative facts” last month when faced with easily disprovable falsehoods about President Trump’s inauguration crowd size. Weeks later, she cited an imaginary “Bowling Green massacre” to justify the President’s travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries.
Amid a barrage of negative headlines Tuesday — Matt Lauer, in a tough “Today” show interview, insisted Conway’s narrative on Flynn “makes no sense,” and the government ethics watchdog called for a White House investigation into her advertising Ivanka Trump’s fashion line on TV last week — the counselor stayed positive on Twitter.
“I serve at the pleasure of @potus. His message is my message. His goals are my goals,” she wrote. “Uninformed chatter doesn’t matter.”
Conway’s account also shared an encouraging tweet from a white nationalist fan Tuesday afternoon, replying, “Love you back.” She later claimed she didn’t know who had accessed her account.
SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/‘morning-joe’-bans-trump-aide-kellyanne-conway/ar-AAmYGcY?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
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The Downfall of Kellyanne Conway
By ERIN GLORIA RYANFEB. 17, 2017
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Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway arrives for the daily briefing at the White House press room on February 14. Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press
As Kellyanne Conway sleepwalks her way through a series of increasingly embarrassing interviews, it’s been hard not to feel sorry for her. It was difficult not to feel bad for her when “Saturday Night Live” depicted her as a craven hack driven to “Fatal Attraction”-style debasement by a desire to appear on the news. When the cast of “Morning Joe” pointed out that Ms. Conway’s recent appearances on news shows proved her a useless source of information, when they sneered at Ms. Conway’s apparent White House ostracization, it was difficult to not feel stirrings of sympathy.
But I can’t feel sorry for Kellyanne Conway. Not anymore.
Not long ago, Ms. Conway felt like a vital part of a system that needed smart people on both sides to make it work. As a pollster who studied the electoral behavior of women, she served as a bridge between the right wing and a demographic that often seemed to perplex them.
The first time I saw Ms. Conway speak was at a New Yorker Festival panel in 2012. I was new to New York City. I was new to writing about politics. I was new to writing, period. On a panel about women voters, Ms. Conway spoke with a pragmatism that stood in opposition to contemporary TV personalities like Elisabeth Hasselbeck, whose brand of delicate pouting defined the conservative zeitgeist. Ms. Conway didn’t appeal to her audience’s sympathy. She had facts.
I liked watching her speak then. I watched her the way a person might stand at the kitchen window and watch a raccoon abscond with the first tomato of spring. I didn’t agree with what she was doing, but I admired her chutzpah.
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Once she took the reins of Donald Trump’s campaign, though, she went from smooth to slippery. She’d hammer Hillary Clinton for talking too much about gender and duck behind her femininity in the face of legitimate criticism. If she succeeded, it was because she was Kellyanne. If she failed, it was because she was a woman.
In the months leading up to the election, Ms. Conway generously lent her womanhood as a smokescreen to the Trump campaign. She tried to insert a watered-down version of feminism into the candidate’s platform, despite the fact that no mainstream feminist-leaning organizations supported him. When her boss was caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, Kellyanne Conway “as a woman”-ed her way out of it. Confronted about Mr. Trump’s chauvinism, she snapped back that women who were in poverty were not served during the Obama years, as though that somehow undid her boss’s history. I gasped so frequently when she spoke that after each interview was over, I’d feel faint, like I’d spent the last several hours blowing up balloons.
When Ms. Conway breached federal ethics laws by hawking Ivanka Trump’s “stuff” in the press briefing room, she got off with no immediate penalty besides being “counseled on the subject.” She told Fox News that the president supported her, that she was lucky to have a nice boss like Donald Trump and that every woman in America should hope to have a boss like him. She made it sound as though declining to punish a woman for ethics violations was somehow feminist, and as though all that matters to women is how their bosses treat them personally, not how their bosses impact the lives of other women.
If I wasn’t too exhausted to feel insulted, I’d have felt insulted.
As Kellyanne’s once-forceful cable news denials have disintegrated into whimpers, I can’t say I feel anything for her at all. I don’t mind when people point out how tired she looks. I simply cannot dredge up any sympathy for a person who has acknowledged the structural problems most women face only when she is personally facing them, or used them as derailing tactics when she’s losing an argument. I can’t mourn the downfall of a fair-weather feminist, a woman who has used her power to hurt other women.
Ms. Conway made her bed. And now it’s time for her to get some sleep.
By ERIN GLORIA RYANFEB. 17, 2017
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Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway arrives for the daily briefing at the White House press room on February 14. Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press
As Kellyanne Conway sleepwalks her way through a series of increasingly embarrassing interviews, it’s been hard not to feel sorry for her. It was difficult not to feel bad for her when “Saturday Night Live” depicted her as a craven hack driven to “Fatal Attraction”-style debasement by a desire to appear on the news. When the cast of “Morning Joe” pointed out that Ms. Conway’s recent appearances on news shows proved her a useless source of information, when they sneered at Ms. Conway’s apparent White House ostracization, it was difficult to not feel stirrings of sympathy.
But I can’t feel sorry for Kellyanne Conway. Not anymore.
Not long ago, Ms. Conway felt like a vital part of a system that needed smart people on both sides to make it work. As a pollster who studied the electoral behavior of women, she served as a bridge between the right wing and a demographic that often seemed to perplex them.
The first time I saw Ms. Conway speak was at a New Yorker Festival panel in 2012. I was new to New York City. I was new to writing about politics. I was new to writing, period. On a panel about women voters, Ms. Conway spoke with a pragmatism that stood in opposition to contemporary TV personalities like Elisabeth Hasselbeck, whose brand of delicate pouting defined the conservative zeitgeist. Ms. Conway didn’t appeal to her audience’s sympathy. She had facts.
I liked watching her speak then. I watched her the way a person might stand at the kitchen window and watch a raccoon abscond with the first tomato of spring. I didn’t agree with what she was doing, but I admired her chutzpah.
Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter
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Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
Once she took the reins of Donald Trump’s campaign, though, she went from smooth to slippery. She’d hammer Hillary Clinton for talking too much about gender and duck behind her femininity in the face of legitimate criticism. If she succeeded, it was because she was Kellyanne. If she failed, it was because she was a woman.
In the months leading up to the election, Ms. Conway generously lent her womanhood as a smokescreen to the Trump campaign. She tried to insert a watered-down version of feminism into the candidate’s platform, despite the fact that no mainstream feminist-leaning organizations supported him. When her boss was caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, Kellyanne Conway “as a woman”-ed her way out of it. Confronted about Mr. Trump’s chauvinism, she snapped back that women who were in poverty were not served during the Obama years, as though that somehow undid her boss’s history. I gasped so frequently when she spoke that after each interview was over, I’d feel faint, like I’d spent the last several hours blowing up balloons.
When Ms. Conway breached federal ethics laws by hawking Ivanka Trump’s “stuff” in the press briefing room, she got off with no immediate penalty besides being “counseled on the subject.” She told Fox News that the president supported her, that she was lucky to have a nice boss like Donald Trump and that every woman in America should hope to have a boss like him. She made it sound as though declining to punish a woman for ethics violations was somehow feminist, and as though all that matters to women is how their bosses treat them personally, not how their bosses impact the lives of other women.
If I wasn’t too exhausted to feel insulted, I’d have felt insulted.
As Kellyanne’s once-forceful cable news denials have disintegrated into whimpers, I can’t say I feel anything for her at all. I don’t mind when people point out how tired she looks. I simply cannot dredge up any sympathy for a person who has acknowledged the structural problems most women face only when she is personally facing them, or used them as derailing tactics when she’s losing an argument. I can’t mourn the downfall of a fair-weather feminist, a woman who has used her power to hurt other women.
Ms. Conway made her bed. And now it’s time for her to get some sleep.
Kellyanne Conway photographed making herself comfortable on Oval Office couch, Twitter calls out Trump adviser for disrespect
Kellyanne Conway was photographed kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office Monday while President Trump met with leaders of historically black colleges and universities.
(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Kate Feldman
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, February 27, 2017, 10:52 PM
Kellyanne Conway has already made herself comfortable in the Trump administration.
The senior White House adviser was photographed kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office while the President met with leaders of historically black colleges and universities on Monday.
The set of photos showed Conway situating herself on the couch to take a photo of the group, but social media users took offense at her sitting on the furniture in heels.
“I will only be able to get mad at the way Kellyanne Conway sits on a couch if it turns out she's hiding ... Trump's tax returns under her,” “Last Week Tonight” writer Josh Gondelman tweeted.
Billionaire Wilbur Ross confirmed as Trump's commerce secretary
“Conway with her shoes on the couch in Oval Office — consistent with general level of disrespect Trump team has shown,” wrote Kaivan Shroff.
Some even compared Conway’s pose to a 2013 photo of President Obama with one foot on his desk while making a phone call.
The image caused controversy from those who accused the President of disrespect.
“Ronald Reagan never entered the Oval Office without a jacket. Obama poses for crotch shots with foot on desk,” tweeted broadcaster Ezra Levant at the time.
La. politician says blackface was part of 'good night at church'
“The White House released it mistakenly thinking it's a cool image,” tweeted Lou Dobbs.
Breitbart editor John Carney questioned the pose as well.
Conway has been under fire since her “Bowling Green Massacre” comments, as well as her on-screen endorsement of Ivanka Trump-brand fashion products.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Based on a true story <a href="https://t.co/1cTVCgMiVh">pic.twitter.com/1cTVCgMiVh</a></p>— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) <a href="">February 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Kellyanne Conway was photographed kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office Monday while President Trump met with leaders of historically black colleges and universities.
(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Kate Feldman
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, February 27, 2017, 10:52 PM
Kellyanne Conway has already made herself comfortable in the Trump administration.
The senior White House adviser was photographed kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office while the President met with leaders of historically black colleges and universities on Monday.
The set of photos showed Conway situating herself on the couch to take a photo of the group, but social media users took offense at her sitting on the furniture in heels.
“I will only be able to get mad at the way Kellyanne Conway sits on a couch if it turns out she's hiding ... Trump's tax returns under her,” “Last Week Tonight” writer Josh Gondelman tweeted.
Billionaire Wilbur Ross confirmed as Trump's commerce secretary
“Conway with her shoes on the couch in Oval Office — consistent with general level of disrespect Trump team has shown,” wrote Kaivan Shroff.
Some even compared Conway’s pose to a 2013 photo of President Obama with one foot on his desk while making a phone call.
The image caused controversy from those who accused the President of disrespect.
“Ronald Reagan never entered the Oval Office without a jacket. Obama poses for crotch shots with foot on desk,” tweeted broadcaster Ezra Levant at the time.
La. politician says blackface was part of 'good night at church'
“The White House released it mistakenly thinking it's a cool image,” tweeted Lou Dobbs.
Breitbart editor John Carney questioned the pose as well.
Conway has been under fire since her “Bowling Green Massacre” comments, as well as her on-screen endorsement of Ivanka Trump-brand fashion products.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Based on a true story <a href="https://t.co/1cTVCgMiVh">pic.twitter.com/1cTVCgMiVh</a></p>— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) <a href="">February 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Take notes, Conway!
Kellyanne Conway on Good Morning America: "I don't have any evidence" of Pres. Donald J. Trump's claims that former Pres. Barack Obama wiretapped him. abcn.ws/2miFtpB
Looks like someone just created this account specifically to post these tweets.
https://twitter.com/KellyanneLeaks
https://twitter.com/KellyanneLeaks
You wonder where and how these reporters get their scoops; all these people spend their evening talkin' & drinkin' together!
if these people start talking and Costa/Balz/Rucker are around they know somma the shit said will be in print/a TV talking point as soon as they can get it there!
President Donald J. Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway defends Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, says he didn't even know the name of the person he was meeting with http://cnn.it/2sW68Ri
IDEAS
Kellyanne Conway Broke the Law—And Is Going to Get Away With It
A government watchdog says that the aide to the president is undermining the rule of law, and should be fired.
The Atlantic
JUN 13, 2019
David A. Graham
Staff writer at The Atlantic
KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS
Updated at 1:28 p.m. ET on June 13, 2019.
The Office of Special Counsel says that Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and should be fired.
OSC says Conway broke the law by disparaging Democratic candidates for president, both while appearing on TV in her official capacity as an adviser to the president and on her Twitter feed. The Hatch Act prohibits most executive-branch employees from politicking. OSC, not to be confused with the office of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is the federal agency that polices the federal civil service.
OSC’s recommendation is important not because it is likely to result in Conway’s firing, but because it is almost certain not to. There’s no question of Conway’s guilt here: OSC doesn’t waffle about whether she broke the law, and there’s no Mueller-style legalistic parsing. The report’s conclusion is clear, as is the recommended punishment. And yet the only person who can punish Conway is the president—the very man on whose electoral behalf she broke the law, and who has made clear, as recently as Thursday, his willingness to break the law in order to win elections.
“Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system—the rule of law,” OSC wrote in a letter to the president. The office identified at least 10 instances of Conway breaking the law.
But Trump has already made clear that he has no respect for the rule of law. The White House promptly dismissed the report. “The Office of Special Counsel’s unprecedented actions against Kellyanne Conway are deeply flawed and violate her constitutional rights to free speech and due process,” a statement said, complaining that OSC was “influenced by media pressure and liberal organizations” to “weaponize the Hatch Act.”
In a letter to OSC, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone argued that the process didn’t give Conway enough time to respond, that she is not subject to the Hatch Act, and that OSC’s interpretation violates Conway’s First Amendment rights. Yet this is not Conway’s first run-in with OSC, and the office noted that in the past she has declined to respond to its reports. Nor does the White House’s claim of politicization hold much water. OSC isn’t headed up by some Barack Obama–era holdover or some strident critic of the president’s in the Walter Shaub mode. Henry Kerner, who leads the office, is a Trump appointee and a former Republican staffer in Congress.
Conway is best known for the indelible, Orwellian phrase “alternative facts,” which she coined to defend the administration’s lies about crowds at President Trump’s inauguration. But she has repeatedly tangled with federal watchdogs over the law, too. In February 2017, she encouraged people to buy clothes from Ivanka Trump’s line, earning a scolding from the Office of Government Ethics. In March 2018, OSC found that she had violated the Hatch Actby both endorsing the Republican Roy Moore in a race for the U.S. Senate in Alabama and encouraging voters to oppose his Democratic rival, Doug Jones. Jones won the race.
It’s not that Conway is unaware of the rules. She’s openly thumbed her nose at them. In a May interview, when asked about overstepping the rules, she replied, “If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work … Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”
Read: Kellyanne Conway’s alternative universe
Her cavalier attitude toward the law, while galling, is also probably safe. The Hatch Act is written with the understanding that the president would not want his aides flagrantly and wantonly violating the law, and only the president can fire a senior aide for violating the law. In the Trump administration, that has been revealed as a loophole, since this particular president has no inclination to punish violations that benefit him. (One of the most outspoken critics of Trump’s disrespect for laws and regulations has been the longtime Republican lawyer George Conway, who has used his Twitter feed to criticize the president. He also happens to be married to Kellyanne Conway. As of this writing, George Conway had not yet commented.)
“Ms. Conway’s persistent, notorious, and deliberate Hatch Act violations have created an unprecedented challenge to this office’s ability to enforce the Act, as we are statutorily charged,” OSC wrote. “She has willfully and openly disregarded the law in full public view.”
Conway’s behavior creates a challenge for the press, as well. Television programs have continued to invite Conway on as a guest, despite her long record of dishonesty. But, as the report documents in excruciating detail, she’s also using the access they grant to their viewers to flout the law, delivering attacks on the president’s opponents that she’s legally barred from making.
The report poses little challenge to the White House, though. Boosting Trump’s political prospects, undermining ethics watchdogs, and assailing the rule of law are all part of the same portfolio. Conway is doing precisely what her boss wants her to do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/kellyanne-conway-repeatedly-broke-law/591628/
Kellyanne Conway Broke the Law—And Is Going to Get Away With It
A government watchdog says that the aide to the president is undermining the rule of law, and should be fired.
The Atlantic
JUN 13, 2019
David A. Graham
Staff writer at The Atlantic
KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS
Updated at 1:28 p.m. ET on June 13, 2019.
The Office of Special Counsel says that Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and should be fired.
OSC says Conway broke the law by disparaging Democratic candidates for president, both while appearing on TV in her official capacity as an adviser to the president and on her Twitter feed. The Hatch Act prohibits most executive-branch employees from politicking. OSC, not to be confused with the office of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is the federal agency that polices the federal civil service.
OSC’s recommendation is important not because it is likely to result in Conway’s firing, but because it is almost certain not to. There’s no question of Conway’s guilt here: OSC doesn’t waffle about whether she broke the law, and there’s no Mueller-style legalistic parsing. The report’s conclusion is clear, as is the recommended punishment. And yet the only person who can punish Conway is the president—the very man on whose electoral behalf she broke the law, and who has made clear, as recently as Thursday, his willingness to break the law in order to win elections.
“Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system—the rule of law,” OSC wrote in a letter to the president. The office identified at least 10 instances of Conway breaking the law.
But Trump has already made clear that he has no respect for the rule of law. The White House promptly dismissed the report. “The Office of Special Counsel’s unprecedented actions against Kellyanne Conway are deeply flawed and violate her constitutional rights to free speech and due process,” a statement said, complaining that OSC was “influenced by media pressure and liberal organizations” to “weaponize the Hatch Act.”
In a letter to OSC, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone argued that the process didn’t give Conway enough time to respond, that she is not subject to the Hatch Act, and that OSC’s interpretation violates Conway’s First Amendment rights. Yet this is not Conway’s first run-in with OSC, and the office noted that in the past she has declined to respond to its reports. Nor does the White House’s claim of politicization hold much water. OSC isn’t headed up by some Barack Obama–era holdover or some strident critic of the president’s in the Walter Shaub mode. Henry Kerner, who leads the office, is a Trump appointee and a former Republican staffer in Congress.
Conway is best known for the indelible, Orwellian phrase “alternative facts,” which she coined to defend the administration’s lies about crowds at President Trump’s inauguration. But she has repeatedly tangled with federal watchdogs over the law, too. In February 2017, she encouraged people to buy clothes from Ivanka Trump’s line, earning a scolding from the Office of Government Ethics. In March 2018, OSC found that she had violated the Hatch Actby both endorsing the Republican Roy Moore in a race for the U.S. Senate in Alabama and encouraging voters to oppose his Democratic rival, Doug Jones. Jones won the race.
It’s not that Conway is unaware of the rules. She’s openly thumbed her nose at them. In a May interview, when asked about overstepping the rules, she replied, “If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work … Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”
Read: Kellyanne Conway’s alternative universe
Her cavalier attitude toward the law, while galling, is also probably safe. The Hatch Act is written with the understanding that the president would not want his aides flagrantly and wantonly violating the law, and only the president can fire a senior aide for violating the law. In the Trump administration, that has been revealed as a loophole, since this particular president has no inclination to punish violations that benefit him. (One of the most outspoken critics of Trump’s disrespect for laws and regulations has been the longtime Republican lawyer George Conway, who has used his Twitter feed to criticize the president. He also happens to be married to Kellyanne Conway. As of this writing, George Conway had not yet commented.)
“Ms. Conway’s persistent, notorious, and deliberate Hatch Act violations have created an unprecedented challenge to this office’s ability to enforce the Act, as we are statutorily charged,” OSC wrote. “She has willfully and openly disregarded the law in full public view.”
Conway’s behavior creates a challenge for the press, as well. Television programs have continued to invite Conway on as a guest, despite her long record of dishonesty. But, as the report documents in excruciating detail, she’s also using the access they grant to their viewers to flout the law, delivering attacks on the president’s opponents that she’s legally barred from making.
The report poses little challenge to the White House, though. Boosting Trump’s political prospects, undermining ethics watchdogs, and assailing the rule of law are all part of the same portfolio. Conway is doing precisely what her boss wants her to do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/kellyanne-conway-repeatedly-broke-law/591628/
Kellyanne Conway loses it on reporter in 7-minute phone call over article mentioning her anti-Trump husband
John Haltiwanger
1 hour ago
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George Conway. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
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Kellyanne Conway also threatened to dig up personal information on the reporter.
A recording of the call was released by the Washington Examiner on Thursday afternoon. In a statement, Washington Examiner Editor in Chief Hugo Gurdon defended releasing the recording based on what he characterized as Kellyanne Conway's "abusing, bullying and threatening" a reporter. Kellyanne Conway thought the conversation was off the record.
The article at the center off the call, written by the Washington Examiner's Caitlin Yilek, was based off of a Bloomberg report suggesting President Donald Trump was considering making Kellyanne Conway his White House chief of staff. Trump has denied such reports.
Yilek's article also referenced the fact that George Conway has repeatedly criticized Trump, and the president has gone after him because of it.
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"I just am wondering why in God's earth you would need to mention anything about George Conway's tweets in an article that talks about me as possibly being chief of staff," Kellyanne Conway said during the phone call. "Other than it looks to me like there's no original reporting here, you just read Twitter and other people's stuff, which I guess is why you don't pick up the phone when people call from the White House because if it's not on Twitter, or it's not on cable TV, it's not real."
"I know it's just for clicks, but you're going to have to give me, like, a journalistic reason here, especially if you admit that you just are repeating what another news source said and the president disputed that anyway. So, it's sort of, like, doubly embarrassing. There's no original reporting," Kellyanne Conway added. "If you're going to call yourself a reporter, let's see some reporting. There's no original reporting, and then, it's just lazy."
Yilek defended her reporting, saying that mentioning George Conway was relevant context.
The top White House aide's husband has continuously ripped into Trump via Twitter, as well as in a number of op-eds for publications such as The Washington Post. In a July op-ed for The Post, for example, George Conway referred to Trump as a "racist president."
'If you're going to cover my personal life, then we're welcome to do the same around here'
During the phone call, Yilek offered to put Kellyanne Conway in touch with her editors. But Conway was apparently not satisfied with this and suggested that the reporter was trying to "rely on the men in your life."
"Let me tell you something, from a powerful woman. Don't pull the crap where you're trying to undercut another woman based on who she's married to. He gets his power through me, if you haven't noticed. Not the other way around," Conway said.
Conway accused Yilek of attempting to characterize her feelings on the highly public spat between her husband and the president, and asked why she felt compelled to do that.
"You can answer that question without your editors. You don't have to rely upon the men in your life and pretend somehow by way of reporting that I rely on the men in my life, which clearly isn't the case," Conway said.
The White House counselor toward the end of the call threatened to find personal information on Yilek: "Listen, if you're going to cover my personal life, then we're welcome to do the same around here. If it has nothing to do with my job, which it doesn't, that's obvious, then we're either going to expect you to cover everybody's personal life, or we're going to start covering them over here."
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Conway has been asked about her husband's sharp criticism of Trump in the past, and at one point, she suggested to The Washington Post that her husband's tweets against the president were "disrespectful" to her.
"I feel there's a part of him that thinks I chose Donald Trump over him," Conway told The Post in August 2018. "Which is ridiculous. One is my work and one is my marriage."
Less than an hour after the Washington Examiner released a recording of Conway's call with Yilek, her husband tweeted: "I've learned a lot about narcissism over the past couple of years that I didn't know previously. In fact, I didn't know it had a label, although I had seen it without knowing it."
John Haltiwanger
1 hour ago
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George Conway. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
- White House counselor Kellyanne Conway went off on a reporter during a seven-minute phone call for mentioning her husband in an article.
- Conway's husband, George Conway, has been a highly public critic of President Donald Trump, who has responded in kind over Twitter.
- Conway lambasted the Washington Examiner reporter Caitlin Yilek for mentioning the tension brought on by her husband's opposition to her boss.
- Conway apparently thought her husband's anti-Trump stance was not relevant and threatened to dig up personal information on the reporter.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
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Kellyanne Conway also threatened to dig up personal information on the reporter.
A recording of the call was released by the Washington Examiner on Thursday afternoon. In a statement, Washington Examiner Editor in Chief Hugo Gurdon defended releasing the recording based on what he characterized as Kellyanne Conway's "abusing, bullying and threatening" a reporter. Kellyanne Conway thought the conversation was off the record.
The article at the center off the call, written by the Washington Examiner's Caitlin Yilek, was based off of a Bloomberg report suggesting President Donald Trump was considering making Kellyanne Conway his White House chief of staff. Trump has denied such reports.
Yilek's article also referenced the fact that George Conway has repeatedly criticized Trump, and the president has gone after him because of it.
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Donald J. Trump
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George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!
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"I just am wondering why in God's earth you would need to mention anything about George Conway's tweets in an article that talks about me as possibly being chief of staff," Kellyanne Conway said during the phone call. "Other than it looks to me like there's no original reporting here, you just read Twitter and other people's stuff, which I guess is why you don't pick up the phone when people call from the White House because if it's not on Twitter, or it's not on cable TV, it's not real."
"I know it's just for clicks, but you're going to have to give me, like, a journalistic reason here, especially if you admit that you just are repeating what another news source said and the president disputed that anyway. So, it's sort of, like, doubly embarrassing. There's no original reporting," Kellyanne Conway added. "If you're going to call yourself a reporter, let's see some reporting. There's no original reporting, and then, it's just lazy."
Yilek defended her reporting, saying that mentioning George Conway was relevant context.
The top White House aide's husband has continuously ripped into Trump via Twitter, as well as in a number of op-eds for publications such as The Washington Post. In a July op-ed for The Post, for example, George Conway referred to Trump as a "racist president."
'If you're going to cover my personal life, then we're welcome to do the same around here'
During the phone call, Yilek offered to put Kellyanne Conway in touch with her editors. But Conway was apparently not satisfied with this and suggested that the reporter was trying to "rely on the men in your life."
"Let me tell you something, from a powerful woman. Don't pull the crap where you're trying to undercut another woman based on who she's married to. He gets his power through me, if you haven't noticed. Not the other way around," Conway said.
Conway accused Yilek of attempting to characterize her feelings on the highly public spat between her husband and the president, and asked why she felt compelled to do that.
"You can answer that question without your editors. You don't have to rely upon the men in your life and pretend somehow by way of reporting that I rely on the men in my life, which clearly isn't the case," Conway said.
The White House counselor toward the end of the call threatened to find personal information on Yilek: "Listen, if you're going to cover my personal life, then we're welcome to do the same around here. If it has nothing to do with my job, which it doesn't, that's obvious, then we're either going to expect you to cover everybody's personal life, or we're going to start covering them over here."
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"You're really going places"
"Nobody read your story"
"From a powerful woman, don’t pull the crap where you’re trying to undercut another woman based on who she’s married to."
Listen to @KellyannePolls berate a journalist for reporting on her husband
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Conway has been asked about her husband's sharp criticism of Trump in the past, and at one point, she suggested to The Washington Post that her husband's tweets against the president were "disrespectful" to her.
"I feel there's a part of him that thinks I chose Donald Trump over him," Conway told The Post in August 2018. "Which is ridiculous. One is my work and one is my marriage."
Less than an hour after the Washington Examiner released a recording of Conway's call with Yilek, her husband tweeted: "I've learned a lot about narcissism over the past couple of years that I didn't know previously. In fact, I didn't know it had a label, although I had seen it without knowing it."