Conservative lawyer Chuck Cooper has removed himself from consideration for President Trump’s solicitor general, according to a report Thursday.
The move clears the way for George Conway, husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, to be chosen for the job of representing the federal government in front of the Supreme Court.
Cooper, a founder and chairman of the Washington law firm, Cooper & Kirk, pointed to the sharp opposition to Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination to be attorney general as his reasoning for dropping out of contention.
“I am deeply honored by any consideration that I may have received by Attorney General Sessions and President Trump for appointment as the Solicitor General, but I have asked them to discontinue any further consideration of me for that critically important position,” Cooper said in a statement Thursday, Politico reported.
“After witnessing the treatment that my friend Jeff Sessions, a decent and honorable man who bears only good will and good cheer to everyone he meets, had to endure at the hands of a partisan opposition that will say anything and do anything to advance their political interests, I am unwilling to subject myself, my family, and my friends to such a process.”
Conway, a partner at the New York City law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, was widely viewed as the second of two leading candidates to be Trump’s solicitor general.
