Kellyanne Conway refused to show up for the Grand Inquisition headed by Elijah Cummings, who is under investigation over his wife steering money from her nonprofit to her for-profit enterprises.
It is a long-standing precedent that a president’s senior advisors cannot be compelled to testify before Congress and the White House has declared immunity for Conway.
It has been the position of President Trump and his administration not to participate in the witch hunts cooked up by Democrats, even with people who freely testified to Mueller for hours on end.
The White House asserted immunity for Conway, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement Monday that accused House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) of harassing the president.
“Today, Chairman Cummings and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee continued their purely political campaign to harass the President and his close advisors,” she said.
She added:
Democrats continue to overreach and politicize the Office of Special Counsel – this time, by trying to silence Kellyanne Conway with ill-founded, phony allegations about the Hatch Act. The Committee clearly knows that under long-standing, bipartisan precedent founded in the Constitution, a President’s senior advisers cannot be compelled to appear before Congress.
Immunity has been asserted for Ms. Conway, which the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel and White House Counsel strongly reaffirmed. This constitutional protection ensures that future Presidents of the United States can effectively execute their responsibilities of the Office.
The Department of Justice (the “Department”) has advised me that Ms. Conway is absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser to the President,” he said.
“The Department has long taken the position-across administrations of both political parties-that “the President’s immediate advisers are absolutely immune from congressional testimonial process,” he wrote.