Kellyanne Conway is in the news again after the United States Office of Special Counsel informed President Trump that Conway violated the Hatch Act multiple times and should be fired from…. whatever it is that she actually does at the White House. Naturally, Trump plans to ignore that suggestion, calling their claims “unfair” and pretending that this is a free speech violation. But perhaps the most newsworthy thing here is that Kellyanne Conway is back in the news at all. Where has she fucking been?
In the early days of the Trump administration, it felt like it was impossible to go a single day without Conway showing up somewhere, whether on Twitter or cable news. After the presidential transition, Conway went from roving campaign manager to the role of “counselor to the president,” gleefully making herself available to every news outlet hungry for the latest bullshit she wanted to spew.
Some highlights: the time Conway used the term “alternative facts” to describe former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s inflation of Trump’s inauguration crowd size, the time she fabricated a mass shooting—the Bowling Green Massacre—to defend Trump’s Muslim ban, the time she encouraged Americans to buy things from Ivanka Trump’s fashion line and triggered a deluge of ethics complaints.
Perhaps February 2017 was the beginning of the end: all of a sudden you had to look for her coverage if you were going to find it. So what’s she been doing? Here’s all the weird shit Conway has been up to while you’ve been blissfully unaware of her continued White House influence:
May 2019:
“Blah, Blah, Blah” (MSNBC)
When reporters noted the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) found she violated the Hatch Act with two interviews she gave in late 2017, Conway was dismissive.
“Blah, blah, blah,” she said as one reporter recounted the OSC’s findings.
“If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work,” Conway said.
“Let me know when the jail sentence starts,” she added.
Kellyanne is not a maid, or a driver (New York Daily News)
Kellyanne Conway says she’s nobody’s maid — especially not Nancy Pelosi.
President Trump’s spokeswoman lashed out at the House Speaker for treating her like an underling during a dust-up after President Trump’s now-infamous infrastructure tantrum.
“She treats everybody like they’re her staff,” Conway said. “She treats me like I’m either her maid or her driver or her pilot or her makeup artist driver, and I’m not.”
Nancy vs. Kellyanne (CNBC)
“I don’t talk to staff. I talk directly to the president,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after top Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway asked her a question, according to a senior administration official who was in the room.
April 2019:
Alexandria vs. Kellyanne (CNN)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway sparred Sunday over the congresswoman’s Twitter silence following the Easter Sunday church bombings in Sri Lanka, with Ocasio-Cortez saying Conway used the attention around her lack of tweets “as an excuse to stoke suspicion” about her faith.
Trump is innocent! (Rolling Stone)
When host Martha Raddatz asked Conway how, if the redacted version of the Mueller report says that it “does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” How does the president call this a complete exoneration?
Conway answered, “The president says that because he’s known from the beginning that there was no collusion.” Conway then continued with dizzying bunch of sentences that included something about ABC being one of the first networks to use the word collusion.
Fifty Shades of Kellyanne (Vanity Fair)
The brief clip featured such erotic images as Kellyanne Conway strutting down a Washington sidewalk in stilettos, a drawer full of handcuffs, and the Twitter app blinging to life on a phone screen—plus, you know, some leather and other toys thrown in for good measure.
Unholy matrimony (BBC)
Kellyanne Conway works for Trump. Her husband, George, rips into him publicly. Their conflicting views on the president reflect a political divide in the US. But they’re not the only couples who see the world differently – and perhaps that’s good for all of us.
March 2019:
Trump vs. Mr. Kellyanne (Real Clear Politics)
CONWAY: He’s — he’s protective — he’s protective of me and he — and that’s what people really should take from this is that I’m — I’m not being asked to choose between my marriage and my job. Donald Trump has never made — the president has never made me feel that way, Maria. I know George is quoted recently as saying I don’t — I wish she didn’t work there.
February 2019:
Kellyanne, grabbed (People)
Conway, a top Trump aide, says she was shaken by an “unhinged” woman at a restaurant, but the woman’s attorney says she wasn’t violent and only sharing her opinions.
Kellyanne, feminist crusader (New York Post)
“What’s wrong with the candidates that are already in there?” Conway asked during an interview with Fox News. “What’s your objection to Kamala Harris running, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, these others who have already announced — Tulsi Gabbard, maybe.”
“If he were a Republican running against them, they would immediately call him a sexist for running against these women in the Democratic field,” she said.
January 2019:
Knife play (Newsweek)
“The real leakers, past and present, get much more positive press than I do,” Conway told Vanity Fair in response to Sims’s claims. “While it’s rare, I prefer to knife people from the front, so they see it coming.”
A wall is not a wall (Vox)
In a confusing discussion with CNN reporter Abby Phillip, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway asked why Phillip and recent CBS polls on the ongoing government shutdown kept referring to a “wall” rather than “steel slat barriers.” After nearly four years of demanding a border wall even at the cost of an unpopular government shutdown, the Trump administration now appears to wish to avoid the word “wall” at all costs.
“I’m asking why you and the polling questions, respectfully, are still saying ‘wall’ when the president said you can call it whatever you want,” Conway said.
Kellyanne is watching (C-SPAN)
“I am watching,” she said on C-SPAN, telling host Steve Scully, “I’m just not going to be bullied and insulted. And it’s that simple. So if somebody tries it again, you know I never draw first blood, I’m very nice, let the record reflect that I’ve been nicer to people than they are to me during our tenure at the White House, but if anybody bullies me again, they can expect the same kind of treatment.”
Pot meets kettle (Newsweek)
The exchange happened on the North Lawn driveway, when Acosta asked Conway ahead of President Donald Trump’s prime time television address, “Can you promise that the president will tell the truth tonight? Will he tell the truth?”
“Yes, Jim. And will you promise that you will?“ Conway replied with sarcasm. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I will, absolutely,” Acosta responded, then took a shot at Conway. “I’m not the one with the alternative-facts problem like you.”
Congratulations, now you’re all caught up on the terrible life of Kellyanne Conway.
