Is Trump’s adviser going rogue, or have we seen this show before?
W hen Brett Kavanaugh’s former high-school acquaintance Christine Blasey Ford came forward this weekend to accuse him of trying to rape her at a party, the initial reaction from those in Trumpworld was brusque and combative. Politico asked “a lawyer close to the White House” whether Kavanaugh’s nomination would be withdrawn. “No way, not even a hint of it,” the lawyer responded. “If anything, it’s the opposite. If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something.” Officially, the White House gutted through the weekend by re-releasing Kavanaugh’s own statement: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
But on Monday morning, they changed their tune. White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters outside the White House that President Trump thinks Ford should be permitted to testify before the Senate before they vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination. “This woman should not be insulted and she should not be ignored,” Conway said. “I’ve spoken with the president, I’ve spoken with Senator Graham and others. This woman will be heard.”
It was a dramatic shift—so much so that it led many to speculate that Conway herself had bucked the administration line and gone rogue. But let’s not get carried away: Hearken back to last November, when the first explosive allegations were reported that then-Senate candidate Roy Moore had sexually assaulted two teenagers and harassed other young women while an Alabama prosecutor in his 30s. At that time, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered a similar furrowed-brow statement of concern.
“The president believes that these allegations are troubling and should be taken very seriously, and that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be,” Sanders said on Nov. 16, a week after Leigh Corfman made her bombshell accusation that Moore had driven her to his home, undressed her, and touched her inappropriately when she was only 14.
Whether the White House believed Corfman should be “taken very seriously” or not, it didn’t take long for them to make up their minds on the matter. By Nov. 20, Conway herself was inching back in Moore’s direction, telling Fox & Friends that Moore’s opponent Doug Jones was a “doctrinaire liberal” who would be “weak on crime, weak on borders, strong on raising your taxes.”
The next day, Trump himself was getting in on the action: “He denies it. Look, he denies it,” he said. By December, the game was up: Trump was back to a full-throated endorsement of Moore.
The allegations against Moore were more extensive and better-corroborated than those against Kavanaugh, the stakes for the White House were far lower, and yet the administration fell back into a defensive position. Some might hope Conway’s Monday remarks signal a strategic shift from the White House on Kavanaugh. But prior history should serve as a reminder for caution.
