A group of law professors has filed a complaint against Kellyanne Conway, alleging the White House counselor is participating “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the Washington Post reports.
According to the complaint, Conway, a graduate of George Washington University Law School, violated government ethics rules when she made the “false statement that President Barack Obama had banned Iraqi refugees from coming into the United States for six months following the ‘Bowling Green Massacre.’”
Conway became a member of Washington D.C Bar in 1995, but she is currently suspended for failing to pay her dues. The letter was sent to D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel Wallace Shipp Jr., who told the Washington Post his office receives around 1,500 complaints per year. It’s unclear whether Shipp will investigate the group’s claims.
“We do not file this complaint lightly,” the complaint reads. “We believe that, at one time, Ms. Conway, understood her ethical responsibilities as a lawyer and abided by them. But she is currently acting in a way that brings shame upon the legal profession.”
The complaint also cited Conway’s peddling of Ivanka Trump’s product during a Feb. 9 interview on Fox and Friends, noting, “Federal rules on conflicts of interest specifically prohibit using public office ‘for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.’”
“Ms. Conway’s conduct was so outside the norm for a member of the legal profession,” Abbe Smith, one of the lawyers who filed the complaint, told the Washington Post. “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.”