Kellyanne Conway’s husband could become the US government’s next top litigator.
George Conway, a corporate attorney who is married to one of President-elect Donald Trump’s senior advisers, is on the shortlist of candidates to be nominated as US solicitor general, two sources familiar with the process told CNN.
Bloomberg News first reported that George Conway was being considered for the post, which requires Senate approval. Conway, who is of Filipino descent, would be the first Asian-American solicitor general.
George Conway declined to comment, but one of the sources said he would accept the position should Trump tap him to be the government’s top litigator. The other source said he has been interviewed by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general-designate.
The solicitor general is the Justice Department’s third-highest ranking official and argues cases on the federal government’s behalf at the US Supreme Court. Kellyanne Conway, meanwhile, was tapped earlier this month to become counselor to the president once Trump is inaugurated next month.
George Conway is a partner at the corporate law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he has worked for 28 years. He is currently a partner in the firm’s litigation department, where he has honed his talents in securities, contract and antitrust litigation, according to his firm’s website.
Throughout his career, he has represented high-profile clients, including the National Football League and cigarette giant Philip Morris, whom he represented in a successful defamation lawsuit against ABC News.
Conway has already stood before the Supreme Court, arguing a case before it in 2010, Morrison v. National Australia Bank.
Conway graduated from Yale Law School in 1987 after attending Harvard College. He also clerked for US Circuit Judge Ralph Winter, Jr. of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, who was nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan.
He was part of the team of lawyers in the 1990s who represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against then-President Bill Clinton. He helped write the Supreme Court brief in the case that would establish a legal precedent for a sitting president to be sued in civil court.