What A Total S***show

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, stands by as reporters speak to attendees of the event combatting drug demand and the opioid crisis, outside the West Wing of the White House, on Thursday October 26th, 2017. (Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto) — White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, stands by as reporters speak to attendees of the event combatting drug demand and the opioid crisis, outside the West Wing of the White House, on Thursday October 26th, 2017. (... White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, stands by as reporters speak to attendees of the event combatting drug demand and the opioid crisis, outside the West Wing of the White House, on Thursday October 26th, 2017. (Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images) MORE LESS

June 13, 2019 12:45 p.m.

On a given day, you could point to any of a number of mal- and mis-feasances and say THAT is the epitome of the Trump administration. Today is the OSC’s smackdown of Kellyanne Conway.

For one, the OSC really doesn’t do smackdowns. It’s like nerd central for good government types (though there was a time when it went off the rails, too, under GWB). It relies on the threat of public shaming to keep officials like Conway in line — but shame died in November 2016.

I was just standing in an office in the WH press office when Kellyanne Conway came in. I asked for her reaction to this. She pointed to the door and said “can you leave, please?” Later, I asked her again, and she said: “I have no reaction. Why would I give you a reaction?“ https://t.co/DZWKJsQLQb

— Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) June 13, 2019

Before Trump, the shame thing worked pretty well for OSC. Nothing like the chronic, persistent, deliberate violations of the Hatch Act by a White House official has happened before, as the OSC noted today:

There’s no reason to think the president will remove Conway from federal service, as the OSC recommends. There’s every reason to think the OSC, headed by a Trump appointee, will now become a Trump target.

David Kurtz (@TPM_dk) David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.

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