The Trump impeachment debate among Democrats continues to rage, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced to work harder and harder to keep the more impeachment-mongering members of her party at bay. On Thursday, Pelosi sounded the alarm over moving forward with impeachment using a strategy designed to trigger the strongest reponse from her colleagues: telling them that the “villainous” Trump actually wants them to impeach him.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told her Democratic colleagues Thursday that President Donald Trump ‘wants to be impeached’ so that he can be vindicated by the Senate,” NBC News reported Thursday. “Pelosi made the comments at a closed-door morning meeting, two Democratic aides told NBC News, who also said that Pelosi called Trump’s actions ‘villainous.'”
“Let me be very clear: the president’s behavior, as far as his obstruction of justice, the things that he is doing, it’s in plain sight, it cannot be denied — ignoring subpoenas, obstruction of justice,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday, NBC reports. But, as she reportedly did in the closed-door meeting, the Democratic leader then stressed that impeachment is a major risk.
“I do think that impeachment is a very divisive place to go in our country,” she said. “Get the facts to the American people in our investigation,” she said, adding that “it may take us to a place that is unavoidable in terms of impeachment, but we’re not at that place.”
President Trump, who’s repeatedly slammed Democrats for wasting time and resources in their attempts to get a “do-over” on the Robert Mueller report, took to Twitter to remind Democrats that the special counsel found no collusion and reached no conclusion on obstruction. He also made sure to address the idea that impeaching him would backfire on Democrats.
“‘Intelligence Agencies were used against an American President.’ @DevinNunes@ShannonBream @FoxNews,” Trump tweeted Thursday night. “This should NEVER happen to a President again! Dems are furious at Robert Mueller for his findings – NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION. Now they should go back to work and legislate!”
Friday morning, Trump addressed the impeachment debate Pelosi has been working so hard to control. “If they try to Impeach President Trump, who has done nothing wrong (No Collusion), they will end up getting him re-elected,” he wrote quoting Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC). “Impeachment is for High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Trump added. “There were no High Crimes and Misdemeanors, except for those committed by the other side!”
He then once again smacked the Democrats for their “do-over” attempt. “I don’t know why the Radical Left Democrats want Bob Mueller to testify when he just issued a 40 Million Dollar Report that states, loud & clear & for all to hear, No Collusion and No Obstruction (how do you Obstruct a NO crime?) Dems are just looking for trouble and a Do-Over!” he wrote.
Trump and Pelosi have been publicly dueling over a few of her comments this week, including her claim that he threw a “temper tantrum” and stormed out of a meeting — a claim he says is “easily proven” to be false.
“In a letter to her House colleagues, Nancy Pelosi said: ‘President Trump had a temper tantrum for us all to see,'” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “This is not true. I was purposely very polite and calm, much as I was minutes later with the press in the Rose Garden. Can be easily proven. It is all such a lie!”
Pelosi also accused him of engaging in a “cover-up,” triggering Trump to reply, “I don’t do cover-ups.”
Related: Trump: Pelosi’s ‘Tantrum’ Claim Is ‘A Lie,’ And There’s Proof
