President Trump wrote a six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attacking impeachment proceedings by Democrats, saying that they “cheapened the importance of the very ugly word” and that the charges against him are baseless.
“By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy,” Trump wrote Tuesday. The House is expected to begin considering articles of impeachment on the floor Wednesday.
Trump expressed incredulity about Pelosi’s claim that she prays for him and fumed about Democrats invoking the Founding Fathers to justify impeachment. He wrote that the proceedings inflicted “great damage and hurt” on his family.
“You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme — yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America’s founding, and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build,” he wrote. “Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying ‘I pray for the President,’ when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense.”
Trump wrote that Democrats were impeaching him for a “policy disagreement” and argued that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he didn’t feel pressured to investigate Democrats as Trump withheld about $400 million in military aid.
Trump argued that he was denied due process by Democrats, including by being barred from sending his attorneys to the initial private witness interviews by the House Intelligence Committee. Democrats, he wrote, are suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials,” Trump wrote.
Trump attacked the impeachment proceedings as a continuation of a “witch hunt” that originally focused on unproven accusations that he colluded with Russia in 2016, and he argued that fear of primary challengers was the real reason for action against him.
“Each one of your members lives in fear of a socialist primary challenger — this is what is driving impeachment,” he wrote.
Trump also argued that impeachment “only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!” He added: “This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth.”
Trump’s expansive letter attacked FBI misconduct in surveilling an adviser to his campaign and argued that former Vice President Joe Biden wrongfully interfered in Ukraine when he forced the firing of a prosecutor who had investigated an energy company that employed his son, Hunter Biden.
“Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did,” Trump wrote.
Democrats in the House reportedly have enough votes to impeach Trump, but he is likely to be acquitted next year by the Senate, where 67 votes are needed to remove a president.
“You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy. You are the ones obstructing justice,” Trump wrote.
