WASHINGTON – George Conway calls for impeachment: ‘Trump is a cancer in the presidency’

April 27, 2019April 27, 2019 Contributor 0 Comment WASHINGTON – George Conway calls for impeachment: 'Trump is a cancer in the presidency'

President Trump and George Conway. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

George Conway, husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, believes the evidence collected by special counsel Robert Mueller is so “damning” for President Trump, he should be impeached immediately.

“What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump,” Conway wrote in a scathing op-ed published in the Washington Post on Thursday night. “Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay.”

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Conway’s metaphor recalled White House counsel John Dean, who during Watergate famously told President Richard Nixon there was a cancer on the presidency and that it was “growing more deadly every day.”

In a redacted version of Mueller’s highly anticipated report released Thursday morning, the special counsel concluded there is no evidence Trump or his campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

But Mueller also declined to charge Trump with obstruction of justice, despite amassing considerable evidence that he had attempted to shut down the special counsel investigation. Citing Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president, Mueller reasoned that bringing charges without affording Trump the opportunity to clear his name at a trial would be unfair. He left the disposition of the case up to Attorney General William Barr, who decided not to pursue obstruction charges.

[Full text: The Mueller report]

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Conway, a prominent conservative lawyer who has become one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, argues that the standard for impeachment “shouldn’t be — and isn’t — whether the president committed a criminal act.”

“Mueller couldn’t say, with any ‘confidence,’ that the president of the United States is not a criminal,” Conway wrote. “He said, stunningly, that ‘if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.’ Mueller did not so state.

“That’s especially damning because the ultimate issue shouldn’t be — and isn’t — whether the president committed a criminal act,” Conway continued. “Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal. In fact, the Constitution demands it.”

Earlier Thursday after the Mueller report was released, Kellyanne Conway treated it as an exoneration.

“We’re accepting apologies today, too, for anybody who feels the grace in offering them,” Conway said. “It’s time to move on.”

She also used a colorful metaphor to describe Mueller’s probe.

“It was a political proctology examine,” Conway said. “And we emerged with a clean bill of health.”

[Trump sought to obstruct Mueller — but White House aides wouldn’t do it]

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“The big lie that you let fly for two years, it’s over folks,” she added. “The burden is increasingly on those who won’t let go of this big lie.”

That presumably includes her husband.

In an interview with the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast last year, George Conway admitted he wept with joy and pride on election night, reflecting on how Kellyanne Conway helped engineer Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton.

“Look, my wife did an amazing thing,” he said. “She basically got this guy elected.”In the same interview, Conway also explained why he turned down a top job at the Justice Department as chief of the civil division — a post that would have put him in charge of defending the Trump administration in lawsuits throughout the country.

Conway said that as he was about to accept the job, he was having doubts about the president’s relationship with the Justice Department, among other developments in the administration.

“I’m filling out the financial forms and it’s like … I’m watching this thing, and it’s like the administration is like a s***show in a dumpster fire,” Conway said. “And I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do that.

Dylan Stableford

Senior Editor

Dylan Stableford

Senior Editor

Dylan Stableford is a senior editor for Yahoo News, covering breaking news and national affairs. Previously, he served as a senior editor at The Wrap, digital editor at Folio magazine, managing editor at Mediabistro.com and a producer at MTV.com. He has also contributed to numerous publications including Deadspin, Rolling Stone, Tennis, Spin, Fader and Bust magazines.

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