“That is just remarkable," Kellyanne Conway says. | AP Photo Conway: White House 'incredibly irresponsible' for suggesting Trump knew of Russian hacking

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s assessment that President-elect Donald Trump may have known about Russian cyberattacks targeting the U.S. electoral process was “breathtaking” and “very unfortunate,” Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Thursday morning.

Speaking at his daily press briefing, Earnest referenced a remark Trump made at his most recent formal press conference, held in July, when he publicly invited Russian hackers to search for emails deleted from the personal server of Hillary Clinton.


Trump later said he was being sarcastic when he made the remark, but Earnest said Wednesday that the comment “might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he had available to him, that Russia was involved and their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent’s campaign.” Conway took exception to the press secretary’s comment in an interview Thursday morning on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

“That is just remarkable. That is breathtaking. I guess he's auditioning to be a political pundit after his job is over soon. That is incredibly disappointing to hear from the podium of the White House press secretary,” she said. “Because he basically — he essentially stated that the president-elect had knowledge of this, maybe even fanned the flames. It's incredibly irresponsible and I wonder if his boss, president Obama agrees.”

The president-elect has yet to concede the assessment of 17 federal intelligence agencies, that Russia did indeed launch cyberattacks intended to meddle in the U.S. election, and his team has taken significant issue with a leaked CIA assessment that those attacks were designed to help boost Trump’s candidacy.

As she and other members of the president-elect’s team have done regularly, Conway said any suggestion that Russian cyberattacks aided Trump’s win is simply the latest excuse from Democrats upset by the election’s outcome.

“I think coming from the podium and basically trying to relitigate a political campaign when the president and the president-elect and their senior staff are trying to work together very closely to have a peaceful transition of power in a great democracy with just about a month plus ago, I find it to be very unfortunate,” Conway said.