White House aide Kellyanne Conway went on a rant about former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation when she was told that Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election.
During an interview on CBS, Conway repeated talking points that have been used by Republicans in the past week to defend President Donald Trump against charges that he bribed Ukraine's president with an offer of a White House meeting and military aid.
"[Ambassador Gordon] Sondland, in his prepared remarks, saying he thought there was a quid pro quo for a meeting," Conway complained. "They had the meeting on Sept. 22 in New York and also the aid went to Ukraine earlier than that."
Neither the host or the guest took time to explain that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky never did get his Oval Office meeting and that the military aid was only released after a whistleblower came forward.
Brennan went on to ask Conway about Trump's Russia-backed conspiracy theory that contends Ukraine, not Russia, attacked the 2016 election.
"Why doesn't the president believe his own Justice Department and intelligence experts?" Brennan wondered.
"The president has said that he accepts that," Conway objected, "but that also there are plenty of ways to interfere in an election. And respectfully, if we're doing this, we're back to Mueller."
"And we've already spent two and a half years and 35 million taxpayer dollars for a Mueller report that was produced in March, was a big bomb," she continued. "Mueller testimony in July, a bigger bomb. And if we're going to go back to that, I think it exposes what didn't happen on Capitol Hill this week."
Brennan interrupted to correct Trump's conspiracy theory on Crowd Strike: "That firm that the president keeps bringing up, it's based here in the United States, it's a publicly traded firm. It's, in fact, been hired by Republicans since that time."
Conway, however, ignored the host's point.
"But here's what I was saying," Conway said. "The July 25th call [with Ukraine], the call that the whole world has had access to, the president clearly lays out what's on his mind. It's the day after Mueller testifies and then the president looks at it as his turn. He wants to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016. And certainly to avoid that in the future, look, we have done a great deal in our White House... to secure our elections."
"But I also don't want the impeachment process, I don't want members of the mainstream media -- which don't include you -- to interfere in the 2020 election the way they tried in the 2016 election," the president's aide exclaimed. "That's a different kind of interference and that's dangerous too."
Before allowing Brennan to concluded the interview, Conway noted that polls in swing states have allegedly turned against impeachment.
"These Democrats who are in charge of the hearings don't represent the swing districts," she opined. "They have to look at the polls and say, 'There's no appetite to impeach and remove this president.'"
