A top Donald Trump transition adviser, Kellyanne Conway, said Tuesday that the president-elect would not honor his pledge to have his Justice Department go after Hillary Clinton.

“I think when the president-elect … tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message” to congressional Republicans, Conway said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Conway made the comments when asked if Trump would also encourage the GOP-led Congress to forgo potential investigations of Clinton.

But later in the day Monday, during a meeting with the New York Times, Trump did not rule out the possibility of his administration investigating Clinton.

During the campaign, Trump directly told his Democratic foe that he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her, accusing her of committing many crimes.

“I hate to say it, but if I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” Trump said during the second presidential debate. “Because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.”

Trump frequently claimed that Clinton broke the law with her use of a private email server as secretary of state. The FBI looked into whether she or her aides mishandled classified information and concluded that no one should be charged. But Trump proclaimed that Clinton was “guilty as hell,” and his rallies were constantly interrupted by chants of “Lock her up!”

But Trump started to back off the pledge to investigate Clinton after he won the election. “I’m going to think about it,” he said in a postelection interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

As president, Trump would supposedly be independent of the Justice Department and the criminal investigations it pursues. </s> US President-elect Donald Trump has come over all magnanimous.

A spokeswoman for Trump said he won't pursue a further investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails so she can "heal". In fact, the incoming President has backed down from his pledge to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the former Secretary of State.

Kellyanne Conway, who managed Trump's campaign said: "He doesn't wish to pursue these charges. If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing."

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Republican supporters often chanted: "Lock her up!" at rallies, while Trump had previously threatened to do just that.

"If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation - there has never been so many lies and so much deception," he said during a presidential debate.

At the time Clinton said it was "awfully good" that someone with the temperament of Trump wasn't in charge of the law in the country, which prompted Trump to remark: "Because you'd be in jail."

He had repeatedly criticised the Democratic nominee's email saga.

But Conway said she thought the decision would help set the scene for a more conciliatory tone from Republicans in Congress.

"I think when the President-elect, who's also the head of your party, tells you before he's even inaugurates that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message," Conway told MSNBC.

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Clinton's email sage began last year after it emerged she had used a private server for emails when she was US Secretary of State.

Investigations by the FBI found that had included classified material and her server could have been hacked by foreign powers.

FBI director James Comey said she was "extremely careless" but decided not to recommend criminal charges against her. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kellyanne Conway, one of President Donald Trump's top advisers, violated federal law in two televised interviews last year by using her White House position to weigh in on a political race, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said on Tuesday.

In the interviews, one on Fox News Channel on Nov. 20 and another on Dec. 6 on CNN, Conway "impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates in the Alabama special election," the independent investigative agency said in a report it submitted to Trump for "appropriate disciplinary action."

 

 (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Ahmann) </s> Donald Trump wants to help Hillary Clinton “heal” and will not pursue an investigation of her private email server, according to a senior adviser to the president-elect.

Kellyanne Conway said Mr Trump is setting a tone for congressional Republicans by refraining from calling for more investigations, adding: “He doesn’t wish to pursue these charges.”

Days earlier, he had said he wanted to think about whether to look more into Ms Clinton’s emails and the US justice department’s decision to not recommend charges against her.

But Ms Conway said on Tuesday: “If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that’s a good thing.”

During the campaign he had vowed to put his Democratic presidential rival in jail over the matter. The phrase “Lock her up!” was a rallying cry for Trump supporters up to election day.

The change in stance came as Mr Trump abruptly cancelled a meeting with the New York Times, accusing the organisation of changing the conditions for the session “at the last moment”.

The newspaper denied the charge and said his aides had tried to change the rules.

He had been scheduled to meet Times reporters, editors and columnists and did not give details of his complaint, saying in a morning tweet only that “the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice”.

After again hitting out at “the crooked media”, he said in another tweet: “Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!”

Eileen M Murphy, the newspaper’s senior vice-president for communications, said: “We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to.”

She said Mr Trump’s aides tried to alter the conditions, asking for a private meeting only, with nothing on the record, “which we refused to agree to”.

“In the end,” she said, “we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.” That was followed by Mr Trump pulling out.

He held private meetings with representatives of the television networks on Monday.

Earlier, he confirmed he will take the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as he defended his worldwide business interests. </s> White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Sunday the president "wants everything to be investigated" related to accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein after the president's elevation, without evidence, of conspiracy theories linking Epstein‘s death to former President Bill Clinton.

President Donald Trump on Saturday retweeted baseless conspiracy theories around Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell Saturday after an apparent suicide. Epstein was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges over his alleged abuse of underage girls.

Asked about the president's retweets on “Fox News Sunday,“ Conway said Trump "just wants everything to be investigated" before shifting to the 2016 presidential election.

"There is some unsealed information implicating some people very high up. … I'm not saying anything beyond that. But I will say that there's always this rush to say, 'We need transparency, we need accountability,' when it involves fictional accusations like collusion with Russia to swing an election."

Epstein's death came a day after a federal appeals court released roughly 2,000 pages of previously sealed documents detailing his alleged misconduct and allegations that Epstein directed girls and women to have sex with high-profile individuals.

Conway said on “Fox News Sunday“ that Attorney General William Barr acted immediately when he learned of Epstein's death, opening an investigation.

"I think that those victims should have justice, and they've been looking for justice for many, many years," Conway said.

"Trying to connect the president to this monster from years ago, where they're seen dancing in a video versus other people who were actively, I suppose, flying around with this monster on his island … perhaps there's a public interest in knowing more about that," Conway said on Sunday.

"But again, this is all speculative and it's not for me to go further than where the DOJ and FBI are right now, but you do hear different people asking questions and they want to know who else was involved in Epstein's crime, or even just his activities," she added.

In response to the president's retweets, Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña tweeted Saturday: "Ridiculous, and of course not true — and Donald Trump knows it. Has he triggered the 25th Amendment yet?"

Ureña said last month that Clinton "knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York."

On Sunday, 2020 Democratic candidates for president also panned Trump's tweets.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke called Trump's retweets "another example of our president using this position of public trust to attack his political enemies with unfounded conspiracy theories and also to try to force you and me and all of us to focus on his bizarre behavior instead of the fact that we just lost 22 people in this community and nine people in Dayton, Ohio."

Sen. Cory Booker also responded to the president's tweets calling it "more recklessness."

"What he's doing is dangerous. He's giving life not just to conspiracy theories, but really whipping people up into anger and worse into different people in this country," the New Jersey Democrat said on CNN.

"So this is a tired way that the president does. He's been using the Clintons as a means for a lot of his false accusations, but remember this is a nation now where we've seen just horrific acts. … We see peoples' lives being threatened because this president whips up hatred." </s> President-elect Donald Trump has decided that his administration will not pursue criminal investigations related to former rival Hillary Clinton's private email server or her family foundation, his campaign manager said Tuesday.

Trump's apparent decision, conveyed by campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe,'' would be an extraordinary break with political and legal protocol, which holds that the attorney general and FBI make decisions on whether to conduct investigations and file charges, free of pressure from the president.

During his campaign, Trump had issued incendiary calls for a special prosecutor to reopen the FBI's closed investigation of Clinton's use of a private server while secretary of state and had also urged investigations of allegations of corruption at the Clinton Foundation. He nicknamed the Democratic nominee "Crooked Hillary" and encouraged chants of "Lock her up!" at his rallies.

But Conway said Trump now sees things differently. "I think when the president-elect, who's also the head of your party, tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content" to fellow Republicans, she said. "Look, I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the President of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them," she added.

Trump has not spoken directly about his apparent change of heart but hinted at it in a post-election interview with CBS's "60 Minutes.''

"I'm going to think about it," he said. "I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them. They're, they're good people.''

Trump's conciliatory gesture stood in contrast to his continued fights on Twitter. The president-elect escalated his longstanding battle with the media on Tuesday, canceling a meeting at The New York Times and blasting the publication on Twitter hours after he criticized TV journalists at another contentious sit-down.

Trump had scheduled two meetings with the publisher and journalists from the Times on Tuesday, including one on-the-record session. But the president-elect, who frequently attacked the paper during his campaign, suddenly canceled the events in a series of tweets.

"I cancelled today's meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice,'' Trump wrote to his nearly 16 million followers on the micro-blogging site. "Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes,'' he continued. "In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!''

Times editors and reporters also took to Twitter to deny Trump's account. Clifford Levy, the paper's assistant masthead editor, tweeted out an official response saying it was the president-elect who had tried to change the ground rules by seeking only a private meeting. "We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to,'' Levy wrote. "We were unaware that the meeting was canceled until we saw the President Elect's tweet this morning.''

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof went further, tweeting: "Mr. President-Elect, no reason to be scared of Times journalists!''

The extraordinary spectacle of a man about to become president and one of its leading newspapers engaging in a Twitter war underscores how Trump's always contentious relations with the media have deteriorated even further since his election. The relationship between presidents and those who cover them is often an adversarial one, but media experts say Trump's blasts against reporters — he called them the "lowest form of humanity" during the campaign — have broken new ground.

His Twitter spat with the Times came one day after Trump did sit down with television news executives and some well-known TV journalists — and repeatedly told them the campaign reporting about him was "unfair" and "dishonest."

Participants in the meeting at Trump Tower in New York described it as a contentious but generally respectful gathering.

But if the media elite attended in hopes of improving relations with the forthcoming Trump administration, that wasn't quite in the cards. The president-elect specifically called out reporting by CNN and NBC that he deemed unfair, according to four people who attended the meeting, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was off the record.

Instead of striking a harmonious tone to build rapport following the election, Trump was combative, participants said. In a calm and deliberate voice, he told the group sitting around a conference table that they had failed to provide their viewers with fair and accurate coverage, and told them they failed to understand him or his appeal to millions of Americans.

But he made no mention of the enormous amount of airtime that the networks, especially on cable, devoted to his campaign. A number of analyses have noted that Trump's presidential effort was boosted by the news media's fascination with him.

In a sign of another battle with the media to come, Trump also shrugged off the need for a constant press pool covering him, the people said, though he did not delve into specifics. Trump has repeatedly shirked his pool, upending a long-standing tradition of the president and president-elect.

A protective pool, as it is known, is considered necessary for disclosure of what the president is doing and transparency when big news breaks. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, for example, drew criticism when she left a September 11 memorial ceremony after falling ill without alerting pool reporters.

On the policy front, Trump released a video late Monday in which he said his transition to power, which has at times been chaotic, "is working very smoothly, efficiently and effectively.''

He outlined a series of executive actions in the video that he said he intends to take on his first day in office: issuing notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement; canceling restrictions on energy production; putting in place a rule that two regulations must be eliminated for every new one enacted; ordering a plan to protect U.S. infrastructure from cyberattacks and other forms of attack; directing the Labor Department to investigate "abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker"; and imposing a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists.

Notably missing from the actions were some of his most prominent campaign promises, such as building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and developing an early plan to confront the Islamic State terror group.

Though President-elect Donald Trump's first five picks for top jobs in his administration have all been white men, transition officials insisted Monday that the team he ultimately puts together will represent a cross-section of America.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller told reporters on a conference call that the president-elect met with a "high-caliber and broad and diverse group" of job seekers and advisers in recent days and predicted that the top rungs of the executive branch that Trump assembles in the coming weeks "will be very broad and diverse, both with the Cabinet and the administration."

That point was echoed by Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who said that assuring diversity — both in backgrounds and political philosophy — is a priority for Trump.

"And diversity means meeting with people across the aisle who are traditionally more Democratic, who are coming together and wanting to offer him advice, perhaps vie for a spot in his Cabinet," Conway said. "But willing to give him counsel and willing to share experiences and have candid conversations about their views and their backgrounds."

The Trump aides were seeking to dismiss speculation that the parade of people summoned by the president-elect — which has included women, nonwhites and erstwhile political foes — has been merely for show.

That skepticism comes in the aftermath of a brutal presidential campaign that was punctuated by frequent incidents in which Trump said and did things that offended women, Latinos and Muslims, while drawing support from white nationalist groups.

Exit polls suggest that Trump owes his victory to white voters, of whom 58 percent supported him. By comparison, he won only 8 percent of African American voters, and 29 percent each of Hispanics and Asian Americans, the exit polls showed. </s> President-elect Donald Trump will not push for further investigation of Hillary Clinton related to her private email use and the Clinton Foundation, breaking with a key campaign theme.

He had vowed to jail Ms. Clinton and crowds at his rallies chanted “Lock her up”.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will not pursue investigations against Hillary Clinton over her family’s charity or her use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State, MSNBC said, dropping a threat made to his Democratic rival during the bitter presidential campaign.

Mr. Trump had vowed to jail Ms. Clinton and crowds at his rallies chanted “Lock her up.” But he now believes she “has been through enough,” MSNBC reported on Tuesday, citing an unidentified source.

Addressing the report in an interview with MSNBC, senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway indicated it was correct. “Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don’t find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal then perhaps that’s a good thing,” she said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ program.

The FBI investigated Ms. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State during President Barack Obama’s first term, concluding in July that her actions were careless but that there were no grounds for bringing charges. </s> Kellyanne Conway, a top advisor to President Donald Trump, violated the federal law prohibiting some political activity by high-level officials with her comments in two television interviews about the special election for a Senate seat from Alabama, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said Tuesday.

That investigatory office said it has sent its report on Conway's actions to Trump for "appropriate disciplinary action."

But the White House quickly disputed the report's findings on Conway's so-called Hatch Act violations.

The report said that in her two TV interviews, "Conway appeared in her official capacity" and in one case "advocated against one Senate candidate and gave an implied endorsement of another candidate."

"In the second interview, she advocated for the defeat of one Senate candidate and the election of another candidate," according to the office, which is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency.

"Both instances constituted prohibited political activity under the Hatch Act and occurred after Conway received significant training on Hatch Act prohibitions," according to the report from the office.

The agency is not connected to the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed by the Justice Department to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The OSC said it gave Conway the opportunity to respond to the allegations and to its findings, but she did not.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in response to the report: "Kellyanne Conway did not advocate for or against the election of any particular candidate. She simply expressed the President's obvious position that he have people in the House and Senate who support his agenda."

"In fact, Kellyanne's statements actually show her intention and desire to comply with the Hatch Act – as she twice declined to respond to the host's specific invitation to encourage Alabamans to vote for the Republican," Gidley said.

The OSC noted that federal employees, including employees designated as "commissioned officers" in the White House, are subject to the restrictions set by the Hatch Act.

"While commissioned officers may engage in some political activity, they are still barred from using their official authority or influence to interfere with or affect elections," the office said. "Although the President and Vice President are exempt from the Hatch Act, their employees are not."

The office said that on Nov. 20, Conway appeared in her official capacity on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" "and discussed why voters should not support Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama special election for U.S. Senate."

"On December 6, 2017, Conway appeared in her official capacity on CNN's New Day and discussed why voters should support Republican Roy Moore and not Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama special election for U.S. Senate," the office said.

"While the Hatch Act allows federal employees to express their views about candidates and political issues as private citizens, it restricts employees from using their official government positions for partisan political purposes, including by trying to influence partisan elections," the report says.

"In passing this law, Congress intended to promote public confidence in the Executive branch by ensuring the federal government is working for all Americans without regard to their political views," the office said.

This isn't the first time Conway has been formally cited for using her official position to make an endorsement that she is not allowed to, by law.

In February 2017, less than a month into Trump's presidency, Conway responded to the news of retailers cutting ties with Ivanka Trump's clothing line by saying on Fox News, "Go buy Ivanka's stuff is what I would tell you. It's a wonderful line. I own some of it. I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody."

Rules from the Office of Government Ethics generally prohibit executive branch employees from endorsing products in their official capacities as White House representatives.

Conway was appearing on TV in her official capacity, so she violated that rule.

After members of Congress complained, the White House Office of Legal Counsel reported that lawyers had spoken to Conway twice after the appearance, to reiterate the rules and ensure that they were fully understood.

In a follow-up letter to Congress, then White House deputy counsel Stefan Passantino wrote that after speaking to Conway, "We concluded that Ms. Conway acted inadvertently and is highly unlikely to do so again." </s> ST. LOUIS -- A defiant Donald Trump on Sunday attacked former President Bill Clinton for his treatment of women and vowed, if he won the White House, to put Hillary Clinton in jail for operating a private email server while U.S. secretary of state.

In a contentious town-hall debate, Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into his Democratic rival's email use because she had endangered national security during her tenure as President Barack Obama's chief diplomat from 2009-2013.

The 90-minute debate got off to a chilly start when the two candidates for the Nov. 8 election greeted each other without the traditional handshake. It quickly turned into an acrimonious discussion of a 2005 video that emerged on Friday in which Trump was heard using vulgar language and talking about groping women without consent.

Trump said he was embarrassed by the video but dismissed it as "locker room talk." President Bill Clinton had done worse to women, he said.

"Mine are words and his are action," said Trump, who appeared before the debate with women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct. In the debate, Trump also accused Hillary Clinton of going on the attack against women who had alleged sexual misconduct by her husband, president from 1993-2001.

Hillary Clinton responded that Trump's comments showed he was unfit for the White House.

"He has said the video doesn't represent who he is but I think it's clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is," Clinton said.

Trump also went on the attack against Clinton over her private email server, saying: "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Clinton said, "You know it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in this country." Trump shot back: "Because you'd be in jail."

A nearly year-long FBI investigation into the emails concluded earlier this year without charges being filed, although FBI Director James Comey said Clinton had been careless in her handling of sensitive material.

Clinton insisted there was "no evidence" that her server had been hacked and that any classified information had ended up in the wrong hands. "I take classified material very seriously," she said.

Trump said: "You said it was fine to delete 33,000 emails. I don't think so."

Clinton shook her head. "Look it's just not true."

She accused Trump of dodging a discussion of policy issues to avoid talking about his campaign because of "the way yours is exploding and Republicans are leaving you."

A flood of Republicans have withdrawn their support for Trump over the video. The controversy has pitched Trump into the biggest crisis of his 16-month-old campaign and deepened fissures between him and establishment Republicans.

The debate's town hall-style format, with undecided voters posing about half the questions and the debate's two moderators posing the others, allowed the candidates to move freely around the stage and address the questioners directly.

Clinton, 68, and Trump, 70, both stood up to answer questions, and Clinton frequently stood directly in front of the questioners to try to make a connection with voters. At times Trump stood almost over her shoulder, or wandered the stage, while she spoke.

Trump complained about moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News, saying the debate was "three on one."

Trump and Clinton clashed on a series of topics throughout the debate, battling over taxes, healthcare, U.S. policy in the Syria civil war and Clinton's comments that half of Trump's supporters belonged in a "basket of deplorables."

"Within hours I said I was sorry about the way I talked about that, because my problem is not with his supporters, it's with him," Clinton said.

Trump, in a badgering tone, offered a blistering critique of Clinton's handling of foreign policy as secretary of state, repeatedly calling it a failure.

"She talks tough, she talks really tough," Trump said. "She talks about the rebels, she doesn't even know who the rebels are."

Taking a breath through his nose with a loud sniff, he continued, "The fact is almost everything she's done in foreign policy has been a mistake and a disaster."

Trump also said he disagreed with Mike Pence, his vice presidential running mate, who declared last week in his debate against Clinton's No. 2 Tim Kaine that the United States should be prepared to use military force if needed in Syria.

"He and I haven't spoken and I disagree," Trump said.

Trump met just hours before the debate on Sunday with three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct and a fourth woman who was a victim in a rape case that Hillary Clinton participated in as a defense attorney. All four sat in the first row of the audience at the debate.

Before the debate, Trump had threatened he was going to attack Bill Clinton for his marital infidelities in response to criticism from Hillary Clinton that the Republican nominee is a misogynist who has a history of mistreating women.

Trump appeared with Paula Jones, who filed a sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton in 1991, Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of rape in 1978, and Kathleen Willey, a former White House aide who accused Bill Clinton of groping her in 1993.

None of the accusations was new. Bill Clinton was never charged in any of the cases, and he settled a sexual harassment suit with one of the women, Paula Jones, for $850,000 with no apology or admission of guilt.

Also at the event was Kathy Shelton, who was raped at the age of 12. Hillary Clinton, a practicing attorney at the time, defended the rapist who ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced charge.

Clinton's campaign responded to Trump's pre-debate event by calling it a "stunt" and a "destructive race to the bottom."

Asked at the end to name one thing each admired about the other, Clinton said she respected his children for their ability and devotion to Trump. In response, Trump called her a fighter and said he admired her for her refusal to give up.

As the moderators announced the end of the debate, the two candidates turned toward each other and shook hands.

Their next and last debate is on Oct. 19.
Trump's aide Kellyanne Conway announces that the president-elect will not seek new charges against Hillary Clinton for possible crimes related to her email server.