Law Professors Want Kellyanne Conway Disciplined for ‘Dishonesty’

Even though she doesn't practice law

By The Stream Published on February 27, 2017

“We do not file this complaint lightly,” claim 15 lawyers demanding that Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway be formally disciplined for “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.” Conway “is currently acting in a way that brings shame upon the legal profession,” they declare — even though she does not practice law and long ago stopped paying her dues to the D.C. bar.

The lawyers represent a mixture of top tier and less known law schools, including Yale, Georgetown and Duke. The complaint, addressed to the D.C. Court of Appeals’ Office of Disciplinary Council, is written on the letterhead of Georgetown law professor Abbe Smith.

Smith told The Washington Post that she’d never filed such a complaint before, but “Ms. Conway’s conduct was so outside the norm for a member of the legal profession. What prompted our complaint was a combination of the specific conduct that Ms. Conway engaged in plus the fact that she holds such a high public office.”

Four Reasons

The lawyers’ offered four reasons Conway should be disciplined: her reference to a non-existent “Bowling Green massacre”; her claiming that President Obama “banned” Iraqi refugees when he only ordered enhanced screening; her saying that the White House had “alternative facts” about the size of the inauguration crowd; and her endorsement of Ivanka Trump’s product line.

The last charge, they admit, does not fall under the D.C. rule they invoke, but as a lawyer she should have known it was unethical by the standards of federal law. Because Conway’s a lawyer serving in “public office,” they argue that the law itself holds her to higher standards than other lawyers.

The 15 lawyers act for political, not legal, reasons, suggests Paul Mirrengoff of Powerline. He points out that they did not suggest similar discipline for Democratic lawyers in the previous administration. For example:

If Conway’s misstatement of facts about Obama’s Iraqi refugee policy is grounds for bar discipline, then I want to know whether the statute of limitations is up for such Obama statements as “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

If Conway’s promotion of Ivanka Trump’s product lines is grounds for discipline, Mirrengoff writes,

I want to know whether the statute of limitations is up for Hillary Clinton’s violation of government rules on the handling of documents — and also for the many misstatements Hillary made about her server as she tried to dissemble her way out of political difficulty.

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