George Conway: Witness missing from impeachment trial is Trump

George Conway, a conservative lawyer and husband to White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, said the key witness missing from the impeachment trial was President Trump.

Conway, a frequent and often vociferous critic of Trump, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Saturday that Trump, not Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, should be called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial. Conway also claimed the president would “melt down” if he was questioned by a “skilled examiner.” 

As as the Senate impeachment proceedings got underway this week, the central question has been whether new witnesses, such as former national security adviser John Bolton, will be subpoenaed.

Republicans are widely opposed to bringing in witnesses, and the White House asked several former and current members of the administration not to testify under subpoena in front of the House committees when the impeachment inquiry was underway late last year. 

In the op-ed, Conway said the best case for calling Trump to the stand has been made by “the argument advanced by Trump’s own lawyers.” 

“Trump’s lawyers contend that a president should not be impeached and removed for making a bona fide policy judgment, whether or not that judgment turns out to be misguided or wrong. On that point, they’re absolutely right,” he wrote. 

However, Conway said Trump should be called to testify to prove that he acted in good faith when making that policy judgement with regard to his dealings with Ukraine and the country’s president. 

“What does matter is Trump’s state of mind: What he actually believed, and what basis he personally had for that belief, should determine whether he committed an abuse of power,” he added.

Conway wrote theoretical, straightforward questions that Trump could be asked during his testimony and explained why his answers could be incriminating. Conway said that if Trump testified, he’d be “humiliated.”

“Confronted by a skilled examiner, Trump would melt down in minutes,” Conway wrote. “He’d be humiliated, and he knows it — which is why he’s too terrified to give testimony under oath, and why it won’t happen. But it’s the logical conclusion of the argument the president’s lawyers have been making. They have, to use Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow’s wording, ‘opened the door’ to calling Trump.”