George Conway: ‘Garbage’ White House defense ‘virtually guarantees’ Trump impeachment

George Conway, a conservative lawyer and the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, in a new interview denounced a White House letter refusing to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry, calling it a “garbage” defense that “virtually guarantees” President Trump’s impeachment. 

“The thrust of [the letter] is that there are some kind of constitutional obligations that the House has failed to meet that therefore render its impeachment inquiry illegitimate and unconstitutional, which is complete nonsense, because all the Constitution says is that the House has the sole power over impeachment,” George Conway said on “Stay Tuned with Preet,” a podcast hosted by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, according to an advance recording published by CNN.

{mosads}Conway later called the White House’s plan to refuse to cooperate in the House inquiry “a disgrace to the country, a disgrace to the presidency, and a disgrace to the legal profession.”

A wave of revelations regarding Trump’s effort to encourage Ukraine to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son led House Democrats to announce a formal impeachment inquiry last month. Several committees have called for documents and depositions from a range of officials as part of the probe. 

The White House on Tuesday wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and three Democratic committee leaders declaring that officials would not cooperate with the inquiry, which the administration framed as an effort to “overturn the results of the 2016 election.” 

In the letter, White House counsel Pat Cipollone accused Democrats of making “legally unsupported demands” and alleged that the inquiry lacked “any legitimate constitutional foundation.”

“It’s hard to count the number of ways that this letter is, constitutionally and legally, garbage,” George Conway, an outspoken critic of Trump’s, said on Twitter following the release of the letter. “This letter, in and of itself, is an impeachable offense.” 

This letter, in and of itself, is an impeachable offense.

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) October 8, 2019

Pelosi on Tuesday accused Trump of trying to “cover up” his dealings with Ukraine by refusing to cooperate with the formal impeachment inquiry. 

“For a while, the President has tried to normalize lawlessness. Now, he is trying to make lawlessness a virtue,” she said in a statement. “The White House letter is only the latest attempt to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the President is above the law.”