White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in an interview released Friday described for the first time being grabbed and shaken by a woman at a Maryland restaurant last year while out with her teenage daughter.
Conway told CNN that she was with her daughter and her daughter’s friends at Uncle Julio’s, a Mexican restaurant in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda, in October when someone grabbed her.
{mosads}”Somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbing my arms, and was shaking me to the point where I felt maybe somebody was hugging me,” Conway said.
Conway, one of Trump’s most visible surrogates, described the woman as “unhinged.”
“She was out of control. I don’t even know how to explain her to you,” Conway said. “She was just, her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here, and my daughter was right there.”
The woman, identified by CNN as Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, has been charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct.
William Alden McDaniel Jr., Inabinett’s lawyer, said his client would plead not guilty to the charges in court next month, saying in a statement, the facts at trial will “show Ms. Conway’s account to be false.”
Conway said that she thought her alleged assailant should face consequences.
“She ought to pay for that because she has no right to touch anybody,” Conway said of her alleged assailant. “She put her hands on me.”
Conway added that her daughter had videotaped part of the interaction, which was later used by police to identify the suspect.
The woman was reportedly yelling “shame on you” and other comments connected to Conway’s political views, the document stated.
“The suspect continued to yell and gesture at her for approximately 8-10 minutes before she was escorted from the restaurant,” according to a police report obtained by CNN.
Conway told the outlet that she called 911 but the woman had left the restaurant before police arrived.
The alleged assault reportedly occurred days after the controversial confirmation hearings of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Christine Blasey Ford, a professor, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school.
Kavanaugh vehemently denied the allegations in a subsequent hearing and was later confirmed to the court.
It is unclear if the suspect’s alleged actions were connected with the Kavanaugh confirmation process, which gained immense media coverage, CNN noted.
Conway said she told President Trump about the altercation “long after” it happened.
“What he always says, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK?’ ” Conway recalled Trump asking her.
Conway is not the only Trump administration official to be confronted with hostility in public places.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was also asked to leave a Virginia restaurant last year specifically because of Sanders’s support of the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service members.
A D.C. bartender in July followed White House senior adviser Stephen Miller out of a sushi restaurant and cursed at him.
Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were both yelled at by protesters who entered Mexican restaurants where they were dining to confront them on immigration.