The sorest presidential loser of all is Donald Trump.
He was our Bully-in-Chief, our Disrupter-in-Chief, and our Liar-in-Chief, and for many years he’s been America’s Litigator-in-Chief. He’s never had a grievance that he did not take to court, and, over time as a businessman, he developed a habit of paying his legal bills only if he liked the result.
Today, CNN’s Katelyn Polantz cogently reported on why, with his continuing Big Lie — the only argument that he has when he runs again in 2024 -- he can no longer hire bigname lawyers to represent him, especially as the January 6 investigation committeem chaired by Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is subpoenaing four of his former aides, while Trump insists on invoking executiive privilege to keep them from testifying, even though Attorney General Merrick Garland won’t allow his Justice Department to invoke executive privilege on behalf of the subpoenaed aides (https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/13/politics/conservative-lawyers-steer-clear-of-trump/index.html).
So we asked our Chief Washington associate solitary reporter, Keith Coleman, to visit Washington superlawyer George Conway — husband of chief Trumpian Kellyanne Conway — to ask him why he’s refused to represent his wife’s former boss. Kellyanne Conway was Trump’s campaign manager, she figured out how to win Wisconsin for him, and Trump made her one of his top advisers to reward her, and she developed a conspicuous tendency to feed him lies so he could spout off at all his rallies. She’s also exceptionally good at lying to the media on Trump’s behalf.
Interestingly, during the 2016 presidential campaign, George Conway became a vocal Trump critic, even though his wife was Trump’s campaign manager. George is a prominent member of The Lincoln Project, whose sole aim is to do whatever it can to keep Trump out of the White House. Eventually, George and Kellyanne called a halt to their very public disputes about Trump as Commander-in-Chief. That was when Kellyanne resigned her position as Senior Counselor to Trump on August 31, 2020.
Trump wanted George to be his Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, but George declined the position because he knew that if he took the job, he would have to do Trump’s bidding, because Trump always viewed the Justice Department as his private law firm.
George was very concise when Coleman asked him why he refuses to represent any Trump aides, or Trump himself, before Congressman Thompson’s January 6 investigating committee.
“Keith, it’s always good to see you, as we both detest Trump. To answer your question, invoking executive privilege before the Thompson Committee is like trying to do a pole vault with a toothpick. Count me out on that one."