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.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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