White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway has dismissed concerns publicly voiced by her husband, lawyer George Conway, that President Donald Trump’s mental condition is deteriorating and should be of concern to his cabinet.

Mr Conway has been a persistent conservative critic of Mr Trump’s policies and actions, frequently taking to Twitter to question whether the president is operating within the constitution and other accepted boundaries.

But his criticism recently has become more personal, as he questions the president’s mental health and psychological state. That included a series of tweets on Monday that included images from the American Psychiatric Association’s ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’.

In addition to the manual’s cover, Mr Conway highlighted pages that include diagnostic criteria for “narcissistic personality disorder” and “antisocial personality disorder”.

His tweets followed a weekend in which Mr Trump took to Twitter several dozen times, airing grievances related to ‘Saturday Night Live’, decisions made by Fox News executives, the Russia investigation and John McCain, the late Republican senator.

Last week, Mr Conway wrote on Twitter: “Whether or not impeachment is in order, a serious inquiry needs to be made about this man’s condition of mind.” On Sunday night, he wrote: “His condition is getting worse.”

And yesterday, Mr Conway wrote that “*all* Americans should be thinking seriously *now* about Trump’s mental condition and psychological state, including and especially the media, Congress – and the Vice President and cabinet.”

Presented with her husband’s concerns, Ms Conway dismissed them. “No, I don’t share those concerns,” she said, speaking to reporters on the White House driveway after doing an interview with Fox News. “I have four kids and I was getting them out of the house this morning to talk to the president about substance, so I may not be up to speed on all of them,” Ms Conway said, referring to her husband’s tweets.

The Conways, who have been married since 2001, have positioned themselves on opposite sides of issues related to the president with increasing frequency. While Ms Conway often appears on camera to defend Mr Trump, Mr Conway delivers his criticism through op-eds and social media. He, for example, has argued against Mr Trump’s assertion that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was “unconstitutional” and that Mr Trump exceeded his powers last year by installing Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general without consent of the Senate.

Mr Conway has also publicly accused Mr Trump of lying about payments made to former ‘Playboy’ model Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels to buy their silence for alleged affairs.

And sometimes Mr Conway has needled Mr Trump for more mundane matters, such as his misspelling of “hamburgers” as “hamberders” in a tweet after a visit to the White House by the Clemson Tigers football team in January.

After Burger King poked fun at the president for his mistake, Mr Conway wrote in a searing tweet: “Think of how much of a laughingstock a president has to become to have *Burger King* make fun of him. Sad.”

That prompted this reply on Twitter from Brad Parscale, manager of Mr Trump’s re-election campaign: “Think how bad of a husband you have to be to act this way.”

Mr Trump so far has been more restrained in his criticism. He did, however, refer to Mr Conway as “Mr Kellyanne Conway” in an exchange with reporters in November after Mr Conway questioned Mr Whitaker’s appointment.

“He’s just trying to get publicity for himself,” Mr Trump said. “Why don’t you do this, why don’t you ask Kellyanne that question, all right? She might know him better than me. I really don’t know the guy.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged Federal authorities sought warrants to investigate email accounts of Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer of Mr Trump, in July 2017, nine months before Cohen’s office and hotel room were raided, according to documents made public yesterday.

Emails were sought by Mr Mueller’s office, which is probing Russia’s role in the 2016 US presidential election, as well as the FBI. The documents, totalling several hundred pages, were released after US District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan ordered federal prosecutors to make redacted versions public, in response to requests by various news media organisations. (© Independent News Service)

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