Appearing Wednesday on CNN, George Conway, attorney and husband to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, asserted Senate Republicans oppose additional evidence being brought in the upper chamber’s impeachment trial because they believe President Donald Trump is “guilty.”
A partial transcript is as follows:
JAKE TAPPER: Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, says he doesn’t think there should be any witnesses, and he’s telling his caucus that he doesn’t think that should happen at all.
GEORGE CONWAY: The Constitution says, Article One says, that the Senate has the power to try — sole power and thus the obligation — to try all evidence [Editor’s Note: Conway is misquoting this article, which states “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” The word “evidence” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution]. It’s an obligation to hear the evidence, and if there’s evidence that’s not in the record already, they should be going out and allowing the subpoena to be issued in the name of the Chief Justice of the United States for that evidence. That’s what a trial is, that’s what this is supposed to be for. And their job is to hear the evidence, to hear all of it — not some of it or none of it, which seems to be the way they are going.
TAPPER: And what do you make of the fact that the Republicans have opted to take this stand of no new evidence, no new witnesses — at least at this point?
CONWAY: What are they afraid of?… They going to hear evidence they won’t like? They must be afraid of something. That’s the thing that I find most disturbing about it, is they don’t want to hear the evidence because they know the truth. They know he’s guilty. And they don’t want to hear the evidence because they don’t want the American public to see it too.