White House counselor Kellyanne Conway wouldn’t give a straightforward answer when asked by Fox News’ Chris Wallace in a Sunday morning interview whether President Trump will respect Attorney General Bill Barr’s request for him to stop commenting on current cases.
During an interview with ABC News Thursday, Barr said Trump’s tweets make it “impossible” for him to do his job and called it “preposterous” to suggest that he “intervened” in Roger Stone’s sentencing matter.
Conway told Wallace that “it’s very different to pick up the phone and ask your attorney general to do something in a criminal case.”
“The President hasn’t done that,” Conway said. “He said he hasn’t done it, Barr says he hasn’t done it — he hasn’t done it. That’s incredibly important.”
Conway then argued that “it’s not correct to say that presidents have not interfered” and added that “Bill Clinton pardoned a relative.”
After Wallace pointed out that pardoning is different since it happens after the criminal process has been completed, Conway continued plowing through her critique of former presidents, citing Barack Obama speaking up in the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore and George H.W. Bush commenting on the Rodney King case in Los Angeles.
“It’s disingenuous to say that presidents don’t comment on criminal matters,” Conway said. “What is most important here, two things: one is the president of the United states has not asked or directed his attorney general privately to do thing in any criminal matter including Roger Stone. Number two, he works hand in glove with the attorney general, as we are all a privileged to do on a number of matters that affect this country.”
When Wallace told Conway that “policy is different than criminal cases,” Conway quickly cut in to say that the “attorney general and the Department of Justice cover a lot of territory in this country, Chris, and we work very well with them.”
Watch Conway’s remarks below:
Chris Wallace asks Kellyanne Conway whether Trump will stop commenting on cases pic.twitter.com/9PE10F6cCC
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) February 16, 2020
