Conway Brings Up 'Spying' Microwaves, Media Pounce

Says she was talking about surveillance in general after media claw at comments
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 13, 2017 8:41 AM CDT

She may have been speaking from her home in New Jersey, but Kellyanne Conway put the focus back on NYC's Trump Tower on Sunday. In an interview with the Bergen County Record, Conway was asked about President Trump's allegations that Trump Tower was wiretapped by the Obama administration, and her response was read by the Record as a suggestion that something "broader" may have been going on. The key lines: "What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now ... There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets—any number of different ways, microwaves that turn into cameras, etc. We know that that is just a fact of modern life." Cue headlines like these:

  • "Kellyanne Conway Suggests That Obama Could Have Used Microwaves to Spy on Trump" (New York Magazine)
  • "Yes, Kellyanne Conway just suggested Trump Tower could have been monitored through TVs and microwaves" (Washington Post)

On Monday, Conway hit back at such coverage, tweeting, "response to Bergen Record was about surveillance articles in news & techniques generally, not about campaign. Headline just wrong." On Good Morning America, she said she "was making a comment about the articles from this past week [like this one] ... I wasn't making a suggestion about Trump Tower. These are two separate things." The Post still faults her for linking them, with Aaron Blake writing, "Her decision to invoke these kinds of surveillance techniques when asked about alleged monitoring of Trump Tower by the Obama administration is only going to [breathe] life into the story going forward." As for any alleged wiretapping of Trump Tower, "The answer is I don’t have any evidence and I’m very happy that the House intelligence committee are investigating," Conway said on GMA. (More Kellyanne Conway stories.)

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