Conservative attorney George Conway joined CNN on Friday afternoon to express astonishment at the latest "lie" from President Donald Trump.
Conway, a frequent critic of Trump, joined "The Lead" with CNN anchor Jake Tapper to discuss Trump's press conference in which the president insisted the Justice Department never briefed him that his name was included multiple times in its sealed Jeffrey Epstein files.
To state the obvious, the Justice Department, the Trump administration, could release thousands of Epstein files right now if they wanted to," noted Tapper. "They don’t have to go get a judge’s permission for grand jury testimony, which probably wouldn’t have anything in it anyway."
Tapper noted there could be hearsay and outright false information in the thousands of pages.
"And they don’t [release the files," replied Conway. "And it’s kind of odd. And it’s also very odd that they’re going to — that they’re lying about whether or not they told Donald Trump about it. Or that he’s lying about that. I mean, can you imagine being the attorney general or the deputy Attorney general and not telling Trump he was in those files?"
"Of course they told him!" shouted Tapper. "It's their job!"
Conway echoed Tapper as he threw up his hands. "Of course they told him!"
Conway noted it's only the DOJ's "job" because "these are his personal criminal defense lawyers: Emil Bove and Todd Blanche."
"He put them in there precisely to protect himself. And, you know, as you pointed out, it’s ridiculously unusual for the deputy attorney general to go out and interview a witness like this."
Tapper noted that typically, a line prosecutor or someone who knows the case would be sent to interview Maxwell.
"Right. Like the woman they fired," Conway retorted, referring to Maurene Comey, a top Epstein prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office.
"Oh, right," replied Tapper.
"Forgot about that!" Conway quipped.
The lawyer later warned the Trump administration that cutting a deal with Maxwell would "stink to high heaven."
"She is a sexual predator! She was found guilty of doing these things! She was found guilty of, you know, she would take the passports away from these girls who they dragged to Epstein Island. She did all of this stuff. She’s neck-deep. Way in. And so the notion that they would give her clemency is just insane."
He added: "What could she possibly say that would be believable? And, you know, the Justice Department trashed her credibility back when they prosecuted her. They said that she couldn’t be trusted under oath."
"It’s crazy," said Tapper.
Conway and Tapper later tore into MAGA attempts to move on from the Epstein debacle, with MAGA commentators like Dinesh D’Souza and Charlie Kirk dumping the scandal, and it barely getting mentioned on Fox News and other outlets.
"It really just goes to the complete lack of shame about people who want to defend Donald Trump no matter what," said Conway. "And this is something where, I mean, the fire is coming — the call is coming from inside the house. This man, Donald Trump, has revealed himself not to want these files to see the light of day. Now, he’s not a generous person. He’s not a person who’s empathetic and wants to help other people for the sake of helping other people. The only reason why he wants to do this is to help himself. He knows what’s in those files, and he obviously has some concern about it.
