It must be fun to be ABC’s George Stephanopoulos these days. The news host not only got a coveted interview with the FBI director whom Donald Trump fired, he got to take Kellyanne Conway to the wall over the interview.
It was no surprise that Conway started off with her alternative reality version of the James Comey experience. After all, she invented the term.
The former FBI director found out that he was fired when he was in California giving a speech to his western agents. The news scrolled across the television set behind him.
Comey thought it was a joke. It was not. Trump even wanted to cancel the government plane that brought him back to Washington, D.C.
Conway is the counselor to the president and one of his primary talking heads now that so many people in his administration have jumped ship. She criticized the former FBI director on ABC News because he wrote in his new book, A Higher Loyalty, about the size of the president’s hands:
‘That’s really gutter,’
Then, Conway blamed the former FBI director, because he “swung an election.” That was strange. She criticized him for swinging the election in the president’s favor.
At a vital time before the 2016 election, the new author had announced that the FBI was reopening the investigation into Trump’s presidential rival, Hillary Clinton’s, emails. Comey said during his ABC interview:
‘I don’t remember consciously thinking about that, but it must have been because I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump, and so I’m sure that it was a factor. I don’t remember spelling it out, but it had to have been, that she’s going to be elected president and if I hide this from the American people, she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out.’
Conway said:
‘He’s an admitted leaker.’
Then, Stephanopoulos hit her with the nut of issue, “evidence:”
‘(Did) the president have any evidence to back up his side of the story?’
The counselor to the President said that Comey “admitted” something important when he testified before the Senate. She said that Trump did not tell his then-FBI director to halt the investigation of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
The ABC News anchor corrected her, stating that it was the Justice Department, not Trump:
‘Kellyanne, I have to stop you there, because that’s not correct either. He was not asked about the president.’
Stephanopoulos continued, telling his audience that Comey did not veer from his statement. The former FBI director has repeatedly said that he believe the President wanted him to end the investigation into Flynn.
Conway came back, arguing that the former FBI director “loved being in the proximity of power.”
That was when the news host asked her if Trump had viewed the interview with Comey. She refused to answer that question, but repeated that the president objected to his ex-FBI director’s claim in his new book and in television interviews.
With a straight face, Conway told Stephanopoulos:
‘The president is very confounded the that this person is always able to divert the spotlight to him. He has a very deft way of making things about him.’
Featured Image via ABC GMA Screen Grab.
