Kellyanne Conway on Hillary Clinton: ‘Whether she goes to jail is not up to Donald Trump’

Donald Trump raised eyebrows during Sunday’s presidential debate by saying Hillary Clinton would be “in jail” if he were president. But Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, says he was just kidding.

“It was a quip,” Conway said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “Whether she goes to jail is not up to Donald Trump.”

The purported “quip” came after the Republican nominee vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Clinton.

“I hate to say it, but if I win, I’m going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” Trump told his Democratic rival. “Because there have never been so many lies, so much deception.”

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Trump said that Americans are “furious” that the FBI declined to recommend prosecution after investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey did declare, however, that there was evidence that Clinton and her top aides were careless with classified material on the server.

“Everything [Trump] just said is absolutely false, but I’m not surprised,” Clinton said, inviting the audience to visit her campaign’s website to fact-check his statements.

“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Clinton said.

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump replied.

After the debate, the Clinton campaign said Trump’s comments showed he would not respect the wall that attorneys general have traditionally kept between whom they prosecute and the president’s politics.

“That is the comment of a dictator that you expect to hear in a banana republic — the idea of jailing your political opponents,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told Yahoo News.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder slammed Trump’s remarks as “dangerous.”

“So @realDonaldTrump will ORDER his AG to take certain actions,” Holder tweeted. “When Nixon tried that his AG [Elliot Richardson] courageously resigned. Trump is dangerous/unfit.”

“Be afraid of any candidate who says he will order DOJ/FBI to act on his command This is dangerous/so is @realDonaldTrump-he’s not qualified,” Holder continued. “In the USA we do not threaten to jail political opponents. @realDonaldTrump said he would. He is promising to abuse the power of the office.”

Conway herself raised eyebrows after the debate when she was asked by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews whether she would stay on as Trump’s campaign manager through the election. The day before, she had suddenly canceled her Sunday-morning TV appearances and was replaced by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. NBC reported that she was thinking about leaving the campaign.

“I’m with the campaign until the bitter end, unless,” she replied.

“Unless what?” Matthews asked.

“Who knows? But I’m sitting here as his campaign manager. I’m sitting here with you where he just performed beautifully.”

Matthews asked if she was “worried about more shoes dropping.”

“No, I didn’t say that,” Conway said. “I’ve made a commitment, and I believe that he would be a much better president. First of all, he won the debate tonight, clearly. And the reason you know he won the debate is A, you watched it, or B, everyone is going to talk about that he was standing behind her and in her space. I am committed to not letting Hillary Clinton appoint the next three or four justices to the Supreme Court.”

Conway came back to clarify her vague reply. “The ‘unless’ is very simple: It’s unless someone in my household needs me or unless something changes in my own life.”