Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said on Wednesday that by acquitting President Donald Trump of his impeachment charges, the US Senate has normalised lawlessness.
79-year-old Pelosi, who is the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House also said Trump will boast of his acquittal but there can be no acquittal without a trial.
Pelosi, who made this known in a statement released in Washington, D.C. after Trump’s victory at the Senate yesterday.
It could be recalled that Pelosi ripped up her copy of Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday, in a pointed political gesture after listening tight-lipped to the president tout his achievements to Congress, saying “Because it was the courteous thing to do, considering the alternatives”.
She said, “The President and Senate Republicans have normalized lawlessness and rejected the system of checks and balances of our Constitution.
“Our Founders put safeguards in the Constitution to protect against a rogue president. They never imagined that they would at the same time have a rogue leader in the Senate who would cowardly abandon his duty to uphold the Constitution.
“The President will boast that he has been acquitted. There can be no acquittal without a trial, and there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence. By suppressing the evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process, the Republican Senate made themselves willing accomplices to the President’s cover-up.
“In December, the House defended democracy by passing two articles of impeachment to hold the President accountable for abusing his office for his own personal, political gain at the expense of our national security and the integrity of our elections. The President has been impeached forever.”
Pelosi said though “the President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy” but the “House will continue to protect and defend the checks and balances in the Constitution that safeguard our Republic”.
