Kellyanne Conway told CNN that she was assaulted in a Maryland restaurant while out to dinner with her daughter and a number of her daughter’s friends last October.
The longtime presidential counselor — who has not previously spoken about the incident publicly — relayed the details to CNN’s Dana Bash on Friday.
“I was assaulted in a restaurant,” Conway said.
“Somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbed my arms and was shaking me,” she said, describing the moment. “It just felt weird, it felt like — well that’s aggressive — and I turned around and the woman had grabbed my hand. She was unhinged, she was out of control. I don’t know how to explain her to you. Her whole face was terror and anger.”
“She ought to pay for that,” Conway continued, while noting that she promptly called the police and that the woman will soon appear in court.
A rep for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.
The Conway incident has become an increasingly common problem for high profile Trump administration employees. Other senior staffers like Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have both faced heckling and harassment when they’ve dined out. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was famously denied service at the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, and asked to leave last June.
Though one of the president’s most visible surrogates, Conway has long kept her personal life hidden from public view. During another appearance on CNN last September, Conway said that she had also been a victim of sexual assault in the past. The remark came during a spirited defense of the president’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — whose nomination was imperiled by multiple allegations of sexual assault.
“I feel very empathetic, frankly, for victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment and rape,” she told Jake Tapper. “I’m a victim of sexual assault.”