George Conway—conservative lawyer, Trump critic, and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway—got the first word on MSNBC after Wednesday’s impeachment hearing finally wrapped up just after 3:30 p.m. ET. And he did not paint a pretty picture for Republicans.
“Yes, that George Conway,” Brian Williams said, introducing the new pundit.
“I don't think the Republicans made much headway there,” Conway said. “You saw some non-partisan professionals basically just tell us the facts. And the facts are quite damning. And the defenses that were put up by the Republicans were fundamentally illogical and incoherent.”
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Conway summed up one of those defense of the president as “Hey, they actually got the money, the Ukrainians got the money, and Zelensky didn't make a statement” regarding Hunter Biden. “But the fact of the matter is, it was the ask that was illegal.”
“The second point they tried to make was that these witnesses didn't have firsthand communications with the president of the United States,” he continued. “Well, the reason why we don't have testimony of firsthand communications with the president of the United States is because the White House has been blocking that! And other than that, there were just a lot of irrelevancies.”
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham offered up the latter defense on Twitter during the hearings, leaving out the fact that the Trump administration has specifically prevents those closest to Trump—like John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, and Mike Pompeo—from appearing at the hearings.
Conway made his surprise debut as an MSNBC pundit on Wednesday as part of the network’s special impeachment hearing coverage, explaining that he is “horrified” and “appalled” that more Republicans have not been willing to speak out against President Trump.
"This is about the country, people doing the right thing by the country and not by their party,” Conway said earlier in the day. “And this is about telling the truth about what really happened and not about party loyalty. This is about putting the country, the law, truth above partisanship.”
