White House Admits Comey Swung Election to Trump

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Here’s the latest from the supergeniuses in the White House:

President Donald Trump’s senior counselor, Kellyanne Conway, slammed former FBI Director James Comey as a publicity hound who is trying to promote his new book. “The president is very confounded that this person is always able to divert the spotlight to him,” Conway said told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on the morning after his exclusive interview with Comey. “He has a very deft way of making things about him.”

Conway also referred to Comey’s admission that he may have subconsciously expected Hillary Clinton to become the next president when he decided 11 days before the election to announce the reopening of an investigation into her emails. “He thought the wrong person would win,” Conway said.

First, I have no doubt that Trump is very sincerely confounded at Comey’s ability to grab the spotlight. That’s something only Trump himself is supposed to do.

Second, um, what? Conway said, “This guy swung an election. He thought the wrong person would win.” Conway is referring to Comey’s admission that he thought Hillary Clinton would win easily, which is one of the reasons he wasn’t worried about reopening the email investigation ten days before the election. So Conway is saying that Comey swung the election to Trump because he thought the “wrong person”—Hillary Clinton—would win. That’s an admission we’ve never heard from the White House before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-M5wa4m3gE&t=1m6s

So was this just a case of Kellyanne Conway having too much coffee before the interview? She certainly sounds that way. Or just getting confused about the party line? Or what? She later “explained” that she was “being sarcastic.” Uh huh.

Welcome to Monday.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate