Kellyanne Conway denies threatening reporter: 'If I threaten someone, you'll know it'

Trump's adviser told journalist who wrote about her husband's criticism of the president: 'If you’re going to cover my personal life, then we’re welcome to do the same around here'

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway has angrily hit back at claims she threatened a reporter in a seven-minute rant, telling journalists: "If I threaten someone, you'll know it."

The counsellor to the president denied that she had threatened to look into a reporter's personal life after she had berated her in a phone call for mentioning Ms Conway's husband's ongoing criticism of the president in a previous article.

In the phone call with reporter Caitlin Yilek of the conservative Washington Examiner earlier this week, Ms Conway said, "Listen, if you're going to cover my personal life, then we're welcome to do the same around here. If it has nothing to do with my job, which it doesn't, that's obvious, then we're either going to expect you to cover everybody's personal life or we're going to start covering them over here."

The comments - which the Examiner published after insisting they were not off the record - caused a storm.

Ms Conway, one of Donald Trump's most combative defenders, told a press conference outside the White House on Friday morning that she "never threatened anyone", adding: "If I threaten someone, you'll know it."

She continued to mock the reporter — "she's not like the rest of you, she's not out here at the White House, doing the beat, out here asking questions" -- and called suggestions that the phone call constituted a "threat" as "silly".

"Don't use the word threaten, don't use the word investigate, and stop being so silly," she said. "Honestly, stop being so silly."

Ms Yilek initially was speaking to Ms Conway's assistant Tom Joannou in an off-the-record conversation before Ms Conway joined the call, but apparently without saying she wanted her own comments to be off the record as well.

Ms Conway asked "why in God's earth you would need to mention anything about George Conway's tweets in an article that talks about me as possibly being chief of staff."

George Conway's condemnation of the president is relevant context alongside reports of Ms Conway's ongoing close relationship with the president. Mr Trump, meanwhile, has called Mr Conway a "stone-cold loser", detailing an interesting dynamic in which the president is feuding with the husband of his closest adviser.

After Ms Yiley had suggested Ms Conway speak to her editors, Ms Conway said: "You don't have to rely upon the men in your life and pretend somehow by way of reporting that I rely on the men in my life, which clearly isn't the case."

Ms Conway, who characterised herself as a "powerful woman", said Mr Conway "gets power through me, if you haven't noticed. Not the other way around."

"Don't pull the crap where you're trying to undercut another woman," Ms Conway said.

In a statement released on Thursday, Ms Conway defended her remarks on the phone call and said she has endured "personal questions" she determined are "gossipy, inappropriate and irrelevant" during her White House tenure.