Conservative attorney George Conway slammed former President Trump for claiming he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election, calling it “frankly incriminating.”
“If I were a lawyer, I tell him he has the Fifth Amendment right to stuff a sock in his mouth but he’s not capable of doing that, and he continually makes remarks that are frankly incriminating,” Conway said Tuesday on CNN.
Trump, in an interview that aired earlier this week on Fox News’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” said, “It’s so crazy, that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election, where you have every right to do it, you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up. When people get indicted your poll numbers go down.”
“His statement there in that interview with Mark Levin that to the effect that he had the perfect right to interfere with the election, is an admission that he tried to interfere with the election and that he wasn’t trying to enforce federal law and act in his capacity as president of the United States,” Conway said. “He was trying to win an election that he clearly lost.”
Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, was responding to a suggestion from host and lawyer Mark Levin that President Biden or Vice President Harris could have told the attorney general to “knock it off,” in reference to the federal election interference case.
The former president faces federal charges in Washington for his alleged actions to subvert the 2020 election results. He is separately charged in Georgia with racketeering and other state counts related to an alleged scheme to overturn the state’s election results.
The remarks came days after special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment in the federal election subversion case in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity ruling in July.
The nation’s high court ruled presidents have absolute immunity for actions that fall within the core responsibilities of their office and are “at least presumptively immune” for all other official acts. Trump has repeatedly claimed he should be immune from the charges as a result.
Conway argued Tuesday the case is “every bit as strong as it was before,” stating Smith removed portions of the indictment “that weren’t really necessary to prove” the alleged crimes.
“And I think actually the case gets stronger because it becomes more focused. And I think the more you focus it in on, particularly the false electoral certificates and attempts to pressure state officials, I think the stronger the case becomes,” Conway said.
The Hill reached out to the Trump campaign for further comment.