‘Notorious’ Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to step down

Kellyanne Conway, a long-serving adviser to President Donald Trump known for sparring with reporters, has announced that she will step down to focus on her family.

Kellyanne, 53, has been at Trump’s side since day one, managing his 2016 campaign that catapulted the reality TV star into the world’s most powerful office.

But the past four years of singular loyalty to Trump, including defending him on television and with informal “gaggles” with the press, have taken a toll.

Her husband, prominent Washington lawyer George Conway, is one of Twitter’s most prolific Trump critics, repeatedly questioning the president’s mental fitness for office.

Kellyanne’s 15-year-old daughter Claudia tweeted on Saturday that she was “devastated” that her mother would speak at the Republican convention, and pledged to seek legal emancipation “due to years of childhood trauma and abuse”.

Less than 24 hours later, Kellyanne tweeted a statement that closed with: “For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.”

She said she would step down by the end of the month and that her husband would also make changes.

“We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids,” she wrote.

Kellyanne has become notorious for sparring with the media, often by finding a way to change the topic, turn the question back on the reporter or merely complain.

She did all of this with a flamboyant fashion sense – a snake-skin pattern dress one day, a bright red one the next – standing out in an often-gray city.

Her work led her at one point to be depicted on the long-running US comedy show Saturday Night Live as “Kellywise”, a spoof of the murderous, sewer-dwelling clown from the horror novel and film It.

A lawyer and pollster by training, Kellyanne said her departure was her call: “This is completely my choice and my voice. In time, I will announce future plans.”