Kellyanne Conway Confirms Payments to Ginni Thomas, Doesn’t Address Effort to Hide Them
Kellyanne Conway appeared to confirm payments made in secret to Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which was first reported by The Washington Post Thursday.
Conway, who served as senior advisor to former President Donald Trump, appeared on Fox News Friday morning in her first public address since the story broke that Ginni Thomas received $80,000 in consulting fees paid to her by conservative legal activist Leonard Leo. Leo used reportedly used Conway’s polling company to funnel the money to her according to documents review by the Post.
The Post also reported that Leo instructed Conway, a pollster who is now a Fox News contributor, to not mention Ginni Thomas in records of the payment. This comes a day after it was revealed that Harlan Crow paid for the private school tuition of Thomas’s grand nephew and previous reporting of numerous luxury vacations Thomas enjoyed at the generosity of his friend.
Host Dana Perino curiously introduced the story by way of other cable news outlets covering it before giving Conway a chance to respond. The former Trump advisor cited security concerns and noted that Ginni Thomas was a “serious person” who she contracted for work regularly. Conway said:
This is 2012, according to The Washington Post. Leonard, Leo’s quote in that article, I think it’s an important quote. He says, I’ve known the Thomases. They’ve been my friends since 1990, and I’m very mindful of how vicious and gossipy people can be. So I always try to protect their privacy and their safety. Viciousness from ten years ago, 11 years ago, has turned into violence now, where people are outside of Supreme Court justices’ homes trying to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh while his wife and daughters are sleeping in that home. So these people will stop at nothing.
They want Clarence Thomas to resign. So Joe Biden, of all people, can replace him with one of his own in this case. Ginni Thomas was one of my contractors and she’s. She had worked with the Heritage Foundation. She was part of the grassroots is part of the grassroots. She had worked in the Reagan administration. This is a serious person who for years had worked in public policy and at the polling company. We did public opinion research and data analytics. We had no business before the court.
Conway noted that The Washington Post was looking for her all day yesterday, before replying with a flair of drama. “I want to look them in the eye and tell them I’m aware that you contacted a lot of my former employees and you, as you suggested to one of them, that you go to her home and look at her old emails,” she said. “That is so beyond the pale, but that’s who they are.”
Watch above via Fox News.
