Conservative lawyer George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, said Wednesday he’s “horrified” and “appalled” with the Republican Party’s defense of President Donald Trump in the impeachment inquiry.
“He was using the power of the presidency – in its most unchecked area, foreign affairs – to advance his own personal interests as opposed to the country’s,” Conway said of Trump on MSNBC.
Conway has been an outspoken critic of Trump on Twitter, in op-eds, and in a recent recording of a podcast, but Wednesday, ahead of the House impeachment inquiry’s first public hearing, was his first television appearance since he began criticizing the President.
Democrats have been investigating whether Trump abused his office by pressuring the Ukrainian President to announce an investigation that would benefit Trump politically, while withholding a one-on-one meeting and nearly $400 million in security aid.
“This is about the country, people doing the right thing by the country and not by their party. And this is about telling the truth about what really happened and not about party loyalty,” Conway said on MSNBC. “This is about putting the country, the law, truth above partisanship.”
Asked if he’s disappointed with Republicans not agreeing with him, Conway said, “I’m horrified. I’m appalled.”
“If you had told me three years ago that it would come to this, I wouldn’t have believed it … I don’t think I could have imagined a president, any president, engaging in this sort of conduct,” Conway said.
Conway, who previously came out in support of an “expeditious impeachment investigation” into Trump and his actions involving Ukraine, chided Republicans for their “ridiculous arguments about process” and asked them to look at the impeachment inquiry “neutrally.”
Conway also slammed Trump as “self-obsessed” and argued that “the problem with Donald Trump is, he always sees himself first. Trump is all about Trump.”
“And that’s why it was inevitable he’d get himself into this soup once again,” Conway argued.
A Washington lawyer who was considered for multiple Justice Department posts early in Trump’s tenure, Conway has emerged as a prominent critic of the President in large part due to his marriage to one of Trump’s closest aides.
He and 13 other conservative and libertarian lawyers formed a group last year to speak out in favor of principles that it feels are under attack in the Trump era.
Conway recently donated to one of Trump’s 2020 Republican rivals, former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, and has been informally advising Walsh’s campaign.
His past criticism has drawn the scorn of Trump, who has called Conway a “loser” and a “whack job.”