On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed the lawyers leading President Trump’s impeachment defense, saying they’ve trampled on the Constitution while questioning how they’ve been allowed to keep their jobs.
“Some of them are even lawyers,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol, according to The Hill. “Imagine that you would say — ever, of any president, no matter who he or she is or whatever party — if the president thinks that his or her presidency … is good for the country, then any action is justified — including encouraging a foreign government to have an impact on our elections.
“[That] is exactly what our Founders were opposed to — and they feared,” she added. “I don’t think they made the case. I think they disgraced themselves terribly in terms of their violation of what our Constitution is about and what a president’s behavior should be.”
“I don’t know how they can retain their lawyer status, in the comments that they’re making,” she added.
Pelosi’s comments came several hours before the Senate launched the ninth day of the impeachment trial, featuring the second day when senators will be allowed to ask questions of Trump’s defense team and the House Democrats’ prosecuting the case.
A central battle throughout the Senate process has revolved around questions of whether new witnesses and material evidence, which has emerged since the House voted to impeach Trump last month, will be allowed to appear.
Pelosi was responding largely to comments made Wednesday evening by Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer on Trump’s legal team, who asserted on the Senate floor that presidents cannot be impeached for actions designed to boost their reelections — if they believe that retaining a grip on the White House is in the best interest of the country. And “every public official I know,” he added, considers that to be the case.
“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz said.
