White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday got into a heated debate over conflicting responses from the administration regarding President Trump’s role in crafting Donald Trump Jr.’s statement on a meeting with a Russian lawyer.
“The president weighed in as a father, he did not dictate the statement,” Conway said on “This Week.”
Stephanopoulos pushed back, asking why President Trump’s lawyer and press secretary had differing accounts on whether he was involved in the statement.
The president’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, said last month that the president was not involved in drafting the statement. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week, however, that the president weighed in, “as any father would.”
“The most important thing that press secretary Sarah Sanders said there, which was completely true, was there was no consequence to any of these meetings,” Conway said on Sunday.
“The president’s lawyer said he wasn’t involved at all. They didn’t tell the truth,” Stephanopoulos shot back.
Conway then pointed to comments about ObamaCare by former President Barack Obama and Benghazi by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Let’s talk about telling the truth. Let’s talk about a president looking Americans in the eye who are still suffering eight years later,” she added.
Trump Jr. has denied that he received any compromising information about Clinton from the Russian lawyer.
Conway’s comments come at a time when both the Justice Department and several congressional panels are investigating whether Trump campaign associates colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
Reports on Thursday indicated that special counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which has issued subpoenas related to the June 2016 meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer.
