On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chortled that President Trump will be “impeached forever.”
Speaking in an interview with AP, Pelosi grinned, ”He just got impeached. He’ll be impeached forever. No matter what the Senate does. He’s impeached forever because he violated our Constitution,” adding, “If I did nothing else, he saw the power of the gavel there. And it wasn’t me; it was all of our members making their own decision.”
AP gushed, “Not since an earlier era of leaders — like Sam Rayburn, whose name is on a building at the Capitol, or Newt Gingrich, who defined a political movement — has the House speaker wielded such influence … Pelosi’s ability to steer the agenda is shaped in part by her decades in office. She immodestly calls herself a master legislator, but there’s truth in the brag — she brings more legislative experience to her job than those immediate predecessors.” AP quoted, Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public policy at Princeton, enthusing, “She has governed with force and authority … She is likely to go down in history as one of the most effective Speakers.”
Pelosi’s jubilation over impeaching Trump is at direct odds with her desire for Democrats to appear as if the affair were a dead-serious matter. The Daily Wire reported on Wednesday:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has attempted to paint the poorly-polling impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump as “solemn” and “somber,” done out of duty to the Constitution, despite leading Democrats openly admitting that the president must be impeached for political reasons. Keeping to the appearance, Democrats were reportedly given the instruction to avoid “cheering” and to “keep it solemn” during the impeachment vote on Wednesday.
“House Democratic leaders told caucus members not to cheer or applaud when today’s impeachment vote totals are announced, and Democratic members described the day as sad and solemn,” Axios reported Wednesday.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper before the impeachment vote, Pelosi protested:
I dare say this isn’t about politics at all. This is about patriotism. It’s not about partisanship. It’s about honoring our oath of office. This is the first president [that] has committed all of these things, as the constitutional experts said yesterday, nobody ever has even come close. Not Richard Nixon even came close to his dishonoring his own oath of office. So no, this isn’t —politics, it’s not even a consideration in this. This is about protect and defend the Constitution.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Pelosi, asserting:
Back in June, Speaker Pelosi promised the House would build an “iron-clad case.” Never mind that she was basically promising impeachment months before the Ukraine events, but that’s a separate matter. She promised an iron-clad case. And in March, Speaker Pelosi said this: “impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country.” By the Speaker’s own standards, the standards she set, she’s failed the country.