Kellyanne Conway won’t say whether Trump tried to fire Mueller in excruciating interview

Kellyanne Conway can’t say if Donald Trump tried to fire Robert Mueller.

In an interview last night, Conway was questioned on whether Trump’s legal advisor Don McGahn was telling the truth when he said the president tried to dismiss the investigator.

It was simple question, but Conway couldn’t give a simple answer.

She started by deflecting the question, calling out host Martha Raddatz for spending a couple of minutes talking about “one side”.

She said:

This has been a frustrated president about an ill-conceived, illegitimate investigation from the beginning and in the Mueller report, if you’re not just cherry-picking a couple of pieces, you see again and again no interference or obstruction of an investigation that the president believed from the beginning, and knew from the beginning, has been…

Then Raddatz pushed her on the actual question, did Trump try to fire Mueller?

Conway replied:

The Mueller report itself says there was no interference… if the president wanted to fire Bob Mueller he would have… he has the authority to do that.

Okay, so it’s true that the Mueller report said the White House gave the investigation the documents they needed, but that doesn’t mean Trump didn’t attempt to stop the investigation.

Conway’s interview was the latest in an embarrassing set of TV appearances by Trump's team, including Sarah Sanders and Rudy Giuliani, attempting to defend the president.

Some people have said the interviews make the Trump team look even more like liars than before.

And people weren’t convinced by Conway’s latest attempt to deflect questions.

When Raddatz pushed again on the McGahn point, asking directly if Conway believed that the president tried to fire Mueller, the conversation became even more tense.

Conway: I believe the president was frustrated about the investigation from the very beginning and knew it was ill-conceived, and I would remind everybody of something that gets zero coverage…

Raddatz: Please answer that question. It is in the Mueller report and Don McGahn said he is telling the truth under oath…

Conway: I don’t believe it amounts to obstruction of justice and if it had then Mueller would have said…

Raddatz: But do you believe Don McGahn?

Conway: I believe Don McGahn is an honourable attorney who stayed on the job 18 months after this alleged incident took place and that is he were being asked to obstruct justice or violate the constitution or help to commit a crime by the president of the United States, he wouldn’t have stayed….

So again, that’s no answer to the question.

The political fallout from the Mueller report is getting increasingly ugly for Trump.

Although his supporters immediately declared victory after no collusion was found with Russia, the full report paints a much murkier picture.

One of the biggest problems for Trump is a line on obstruction of justice which says: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

That line means the question of whether Trump broke the law is still open and unlikely to go away anytime soon.

You can read the full Mueller report here.

HT: HuffPost

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