In the immediate aftermath of the New Yorker publishing a bombshell report about physical abuse allegations against New York Attorney General and longtime Trump foe Eric Schneiderman, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway fired off a tweet claiming the “Allegations are harrowing… Drunk with power,” and then another mocking Schneiderman for once saying that “No one is above the law, and I’ll continue to remind President Trump and his administration of that fact everyday.”
Allegations are harrowing.
Violence against women.
Drunk with power.
It’s so tough to read you must.
https://t.co/Tvm0GdFo9Z— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) May 7, 2018
Gotcha. https://t.co/a3NPal4z9X
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) May 8, 2018
Conway also retweeted a Daily Caller story that gives President Trump credit for purportedly predicting the fall of Schneiderman.
Before the night was through, Schneiderman announced he would resign from his office at the close of business on Tuesday.
The White House’s attempt to score quick points on the Schneiderman allegations stands in contrast to its response to sexual abuse allegations made against the Trump-supporting Republican governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens.
Greitens is accused of tying up a woman he was having an affair with, ripping off her clothes, blindfolding her, taking photos of her without her consent, and then threatening to make the photos public if the woman spoke about the incident. He was indicted and arrested on felony invasion of privacy charges related to the 2015 incident in February, and is set to go on trial next week.
In April, three Republican state senators from Missouri wrote the president and asked him to ask Greitens to resign in his capacity as commander in chief. During a news briefing that took place shortly afterward, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was asked about the letter, but stopped well short of calling for Greitens to resign.
“I don’t have an official response at this time, but it’s certainly something that is very concerning and something that we’re taking very seriously. And I’ll keep you updated as we have something,” Sanders said. Her comments remain the White House’s most recent public comment about Greitens.
Conway wasn’t alone in trying to score cheap points on the Schneiderman allegations. As he did in the case of Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump Jr. gleefully tweeted about the Schneiderman story on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, at one point pointing out the hypocrisy of Schneiderman portraying himself as a champion for women while he was allegedly abusing them.
Self awareness level: 0
Or substantially less than that. https://t.co/GXgFyueKLD
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 8, 2018
Trump Jr., however, never tweeted about the assault allegations against Greitens or former Republican National Committee finance chair Steve Wynn.
beginning to think it’s not the sexual assault accusations that’s motivating his outrage pic.twitter.com/YjTcdykEcq
— Sam Stein (@samstein) May 8, 2018
The idea that the Trump White House takes abuse allegations seriously is also belied by how administration officials handled accusations against Roy Moore and Rob Porter.
Moore, a failed U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama, received Trump’s full-throated endorsement despite being credibly accused of child molestation. Porter, a former top White House aide, was defended by the president even after two ex-wives came forward to accuse him of domestic abuse, with one of the women presenting photographic evidence to back up her claim.
In a February tweet that was indirectly about Porter, the president decried that “Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation.”
Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused – life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2018
Supporters of the president are in a precarious place when it comes to scoring points on sexual assault allegations, given that Trump has been accused of assault by 14 women. The administration’s official position is that all of those women are lying.