House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disregarded the idea that impeaching former President Donald Trump after he leaves office would harm her party’s message of healing and unity under President Biden.
“I’m not worried about that,” Pelosi said at a news conference Wednesday. “The fact is, the president of the United States committed an act of incitement of insurrection. I don’t think it’s very unifying to say, ‘Oh, let’s just forget it and move on.’ That’s not how you unify.”
Pelosi dismissed the notion that the Senate cannot convict Trump just because he is now out of office, saying presidents don’t get a free pass in the last month of their term.
“Just because he’s now gone, thank God, you don’t get to say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration,'” Pelosi said. “‘You’re going to get a get-out-of-jail card free because people think we should make nice-nice and forget that people died here on Jan. 6.'”
Five people died when a mob of Trump supporters sieged the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, including a Capitol Police officer and a Trump supporter who was trying to break into the House chamber.
House Democrats quickly moved to impeach Trump on charges of incitement of insurrection over a speech he gave shortly before the crowd made their way to the Capitol, claiming his actions directly led to the rioting that ensued.
Pelosi also blamed Republican lawmakers who backed Trump’s effort to object to certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory, saying there was “no question” those lawmakers “gave aid and comfort to those” who laid siege to the Capitol “with the idea that they were embracing a lie.”
Pelosi said that some lawmakers and their staffers are still traumatized by the riot, adding that there is “damage that must be addressed.”
The House has yet to transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate for a trial, where it faces an uncertain future amid debate about the legality of holding an impeachment trial for a president no longer in office. Democrats are also anxious to confirm Biden’s Cabinet picks and pass more pandemic assistance legislation, something that could put the impeachment question on the back burner even longer.
But Pelosi said that she plans to talk to the House impeachment managers “in the next few days” about when “the Senate will be ready” for the House to deliver the article.
