Kellyanne Conway threatens to investigate reporter’s personal life in unhinged interview

Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway threatened to investigate a reporter’s personal life during an unhinged interview with the Washington Examiner.

The trouble began after Examiner reporter Caitlin Yilek received a call from Tom Joannou, who serves as Conway’s personal assistant, to complain about a story she’d written that included mentions of husband George Conway, who has become a prominent critic of President Donald Trump.

Joannou asked Yilek if the conversation could be off the record, and she agreed. However, shortly after the two started talking, Kellyanne Conway herself grabbed the phone and started haranguing Yilek.

Because she had only agreed to stay off the record with Joannou, the conversation with Conway was now on the record.

The Trump adviser railed against Yilek for writing about her husband and claimed that he was only now making a name for himself because of her relation with the president.

“Let me tell you something, from a powerful woman,” Conway said. “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.”

Later in the interview, Conway threatened to launch investigations into Yilek’s personal life.

“Listen, if you’re going to cover my personal life, then we’re welcome to do the same around here,” she said. “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.”

Read the whole interview at this link.

[Raw Story]

Trump accuses NYT reporter of breaking the law by alerting FBI to Kushner meetings with Russians

President Donald Trump accused a New York Times reporter of breaking the law by tipping off the FBI to developments in the Russia investigation.

Times reporter Michael Schmidt alerted the FBI’s assistant director for public affairs in March 2017 that he and some colleagues had found out Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn had met in December 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who then set up a meeting between Trump’s son-in-law and a Russian banker.

Schmidt’s email was then forwarded to FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who was leading the bureau’s Russia investigation, and Jonathan Moffa, an FBI counterintelligence officer, reported the Washington Examiner.

Trump reacted with a pair of tweets suggesting that Schmidt had fed false information to the FBI.

“Just revealed that the Failing and Desperate New York Times was feeding false stories about me, & those associated with me, to the FBI,” Trump tweeted. “This shows the kind of unprecedented hatred I have been putting up with for years with this Crooked newspaper. Is what they have done legal?”

[Raw Story]

Trump Boasts of ‘Historical Results’ List Published in the Washington Examiner…That His Own Team Wrote by Tamar Auber

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump lauded the Washington Examinerfor publishing a list of the Trump administration’s 205 historic results.

“Washington Examiner – ‘MAGA list: 205 ‘historic results’ help Trump make case for 2020 re-election.’ True!” Trump wrote, quoting the headline.

Yet, as the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale notably noticed, that list of accomplishments actually came directly from Trump’s own team, who provided the Examiner an “exclusive.”

And, in fact, had Trump read down a few paragraphs below the bold headline print, that fact was clearly written the article itself, which was published on New Year’s Eve.

It is also not the first time that the Washington Examiner has published the White House’s list of Trump’s self-drafted results.

Back in October, the Examiner published a list of 289 accomplishmentsof “relentless, promise-keeping.”

That list was also apparently provided to the Examiner by the Trump administration.

[Mediaite]