President Donald Trump’s team is refusing to accept the conclusions outlined in the final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, including those like Russian efforts to get Trump elected that have been established via a number of other sources. This weekend on ABC’s This Week, longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway adamantly refused to acknowledge that proven reality preferring to trot off even further into her merry land of alternative facts.
Host Martha Raddatz directly asked her whether she accepted the findings that Russians tried to help Donald Trump get elected even if there was no prosecutable conspiracy between the two, and the short version of her response is — no, she does not. The longer version is:
‘I think they tried to sow disinformation and discord in our democracy and we should never allow that from any foreign government or foreign actor. They were also unsuccessful. We didn’t need WikiLeaks. We had Wisconsin. He won because he was the better candidate with the better message, and we had a fraction of the personnel, we had a fraction of the resources, and we were very smart about deploying our two greatest assets — Donald Trump and Mike Pence.’
NEW: “Donald Trump won. We didn’t need Wikileaks. We had Wisconsin. He won because he was the better candidate,” Kellyanne Conway tells @MarthaRaddatz when asked if she accepts Mueller’s finding that Russia worked to help elect Donald Trump https://t.co/yZdNkbTlSI pic.twitter.com/MpYRxdXZTK
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 21, 2019
Don’t flatter yourself. Her assessment of the situation is completely off base from actual reality. At rally after rally, Donald Trump touted how much he “loved” WikiLeaks, driving home the idea for his supporters that their stolen and leaked emails revealed damaging information about Hillary Clinton. For Conway to come in after that and suggest the campaign “didn’t need WikiLeaks” is outlandish — although she’s not the first close ally to recently make a similar assertion. After the arrest of the organization’s founder Julian Assange, Vice President Mike Pence asserted that Trump’s repeated public proclamations of “love” for WikiLeaks were not an “endorsement.” We’re supposed to believe that, because it’s opposite day, or something. That’s the level we’re at with these people.
Similarly to the above, Conway’s assertion that Russian efforts to meddle were unsuccessful is false by any reasonable measurement. They were attempting to get Donald Trump elected — and he’s currently in the White House after helping get the Russian messaging out far and wide via touting the emails they stole and distributed via WikiLeaks.
Although the Mueller investigation concluded there was no criminally prosecutable conspiracy between the Trump team and the Russians, it did not conclude that he was innocent of obstruction of justice allegations — which Conway also refused to acknowledge as meaningful. She adamantly defended her boss’s false claims that the Mueller report provides “complete exoneration,” offering:
‘The president says that because he’s known from the beginning that there was no collusion.’
She went on to slam Mueller’s refusal to exonerate Trump, saying:
‘That’s not really the job of a prosecutor. The job of a prosecutor is to gather evidence and to decide whether to indict or decline to indict. They declined to indict. The president is not going to jail.’
NEW: Asked about Mueller not exonerating President Trump on obstruction of justice, Kellyanne Conway says, “That’s not really the job of a prosecutor … they declined to indict. The president is not going to jail, he’s staying in the White House” https://t.co/P6iz1j1VA4 pic.twitter.com/3Wvk2fsqx4
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 21, 2019
Is that really the standard we’re going with now??? The president is “not going to jail” so everything is fine and dandy??? That’s not a question that should ever be asked in the first place and Conway refuses to acknowledge the significance of that. It’s not entirely surprising considering precedent that she thinks she knows more about judicial procedure than a former FBI director.
Featured Image via screenshot
