George Conway slams ‘silly’ Washington Post report on Barr booking holiday party at Trump Hotel – Washington Examiner

George Conway, husband to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, is not impressed with the Washington Post‘s latest scoop about Attorney General William Barr.

Conway, a conservative lawyer who routinely criticizes President Trump, argued with people on Twitter about Barr holding a family holiday party for 200 people at Trump International Hotel in December. He reasoned that it is an inconsequential story in comparison to the attorney general’s role in the rollout of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation.

“Frankly, this is a silly story. Barr is paying for the party out of his own pocket. The hotel is next door to DOJ. The notion that the small profit from this would improve his standing with Trump, especially given how Barr misled the public about the Mueller report, is absurd,” Conway tweeted Tuesday.

A Justice Department official told the Post that Barr, who hosts a holiday party each year, is picking up the tab himself and only reserved space in the hotel after other prominent hotels in the city were booked. The official also said Barr was not trying to score points with his boss with his reservation, which could bring in more than $30,000 of business, but that did not stop critics from arguing the attorney general was making an ethically questionable decision.

“I respectfully disagree, George. It is a conflict,” Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said in response to Conway. “Barr giving a middle finger to any notion of independence. Imagine if Obama’s AG had given a $30,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation while there were qs about Hillary. Not even $ in their pockets. Defcon 1, appropriately so.”

“This party is trivial nonsense. Barr gave the middle finger to independence when he acted as a PR shill for the White House when he received the Mueller Report. That’s what we should be talking about,” Conway shot back.

Before Mueller’s report was released with redactions to the public in April, Barr put out a summary of the report’s principal conclusions that said Mueller did not establish criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Barr also concluded Mueller’s investigation did not find “sufficient” evidence to determine whether Trump obstructed justice. Critics have argued that Barr sought to mislead the public about Mueller’s findings by establishing a narrative of Trump being cleared.

Still, Mueller’s report laid out 10 instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice. Although Mueller declined to say whether he committed obstruction, citing a Justice Department guideline that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, Democrats in Congress argue the special counsel gave them a road map to impeachment.

In a flurry of follow-up tweets, Conway explained why he does not think the Post story deserves “outrage.”

He also quipped that Trump saying he wants to host the 2020 G-7 meeting of international leaders at Trump Doral, a Florida resort the president owns, is outrageous.

Conway has made headlines over the past year for attacking Trump on Twitter, including questioning the mental stability of his wife’s boss.