White House aide Kellyanne Conway tore into congressional Democrats on Monday, suggesting they should be ashamed for tapping a lawyer who has appeared on TV to testify about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean is expected to tell the House Judiciary Committee on Monday afternoon that the potential obstruction of justice committed by President Donald Trump, as laid out in the Mueller report, is “strikingly” similar to the Watergate scandal.
Dean, who was deeply involved in the Watergate burglaries and subsequent cover-up, served as a key witness for the prosecution in that case in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. President Richard Nixon ultimately resigned in 1974 after the investigation revealed his administration committed multiple abuses of power.
Conway, during an interview Monday with “Fox & Friends,” accused House Democrats of unfairly giving Dean a platform while blocking the White House from reserving a room on Capitol Hill to conduct a briefing on an opioid report.
“I’ve never been disbarred,” Conway said, referring to Dean. “Never went to jail from obstruction of justice, and don’t plan on it. But they’re picking their lawyers from TV now. Remember, he also tried to derail Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.”
“We remember,” host Steve Doocy said.
“This is not a credible person,” Conway said.
A senior Democratic aide denied that the Trump administration had made a request for such a briefing room.
“The Republicans have a caucus room they could give them for this,” the aide told HuffPost in a statement. “I do know that the Senate set up this briefing on their side but insisted that there be other briefers since [Conway] knows nothing about this topic.”
The irony of Conway’s comments, of course, is that the Trump administration has hired over a dozen former Fox News staffers since 2017. A few examples include national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson and Bill Shine, the former Fox News executive who served as the Trump White House communications director for eight months.
Several former White House officials have joined Fox since leaving the administration, including former White House communications director Hope Hicks and former White House aide Sebastian Gorka.
Neither Conway nor the White House immediately responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment.