A group of White House counsel Pat Cipollone's former law school classmates has taken aim at his letter detailing the Trump administration's refusal to cooperate with House Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

In an Oct. 10 letter, 21 members of the University of Chicago Law School class of 1991 urged Cipollone to "retract" the letter he sent to congressional Democrats earlier in the week, in which he wrote that President Donald Trump rejects the "constitutionally defective" House impeachment inquiry.

"We are sorry to see how your letter to the congressional leadership flouts the traditions of rigor and intellectual honesty that we learned together," the letter said. "Fair-minded lawyers can easily agree on this regardless of their politics. Your letter instead distorts the law and the Constitution for other purposes, including cable news consumption."

The letter's signatories include a scattering of current Big Law attorneys: Sharon Hendricks, a partner at Gunderson Dettmer; Emily Nozick, of counsel in Dentons' litigation practice; and Joseph Ostoyich, a senior partner at Baker Botts who is on the firm's executive committee and has served as chair of the Washington, D.C., office's litigation department.

Also among the letter's signers are Yale Law School's associate dean, Ellen Cosgrove, and Tracey Meares, who is a professor and the founder of the school's Justice Collaboratory; Marc Fagel, a former San Francisco regional director for the Securities and Exchange Commission and ex-Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner; and Larry Weiss, a former Hogan Lovells partner who is now general counsel for SAFE Group.

None of the signatories could immediately be reached for comment.

Cipollone, who was named White House counsel in October 2018, was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and Stein, Mitchell, Cipollone, Beato & Missner, a commercial litigation firm in Washington, D.C.

Read the full letter here: