Kellyanne Conway avoids her own comments that no one from Trump campaign talked to Russia

Kellyanne Conway is trying to spin the Trump administration out of its latest scandal, but has to face her comments

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published July 10, 2017 8:51AM (EDT)

 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

During an appearance on "Good Morning America," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway was evasive when host George Stephanopoulos asked her to reconcile the recent story about Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer with her earlier claims that no one from Team Trump had talked to the Russians.

"So as I understand it, George, some of the disclosure forms have been amended since that time, and to reflect other meetings including this one," Conway replied. "I think that Tom Llamas, your colleague, put it best. He said that these were vague and ambiguous statements, that Don Jr. was not aware of the lawyer's name before he got there, and that the conversation quickly changed to what seemed to be the entire purpose of the meeting for that woman, which was Russian adoption."

Conway added, "No information was received that was meaningful or helpful and no action was taken."

Conway's answer should be used to prepare White House officials for future interviews featuring clips of them saying that there was nothing to the Trump-Russia story, like this response by Vice President Mike Pence in January to a question about alleged collusion.

"Of course not, and I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy," said Pence. "The fact that a few news organizations, not this one, actually trafficked in a memo that was produced as opposition research and attributed that to intelligence efforts can only be attributed to media bias."


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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