Pelosi: Trump’s impeachment ‘cannot be erased’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ahead of a vote on Wednesday to send House-passed articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial doubled down on comments that impeachment will forever be a part of President Trump’s legacy.

During House floor debate on a resolution naming the seven House lawmakers who will serve as prosecutors — also known as impeachment managers — in the Senate trial, Pelosi said that the outcome in the upper chamber won’t change the fact that the lower chamber voted to impeach the president.

The House, she said, was about to “cross a very important threshold in American history” by sending over the articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abusing his power and obstructing Congress.

“Yes, it is a fact: When someone is impeached, they are always impeached. It cannot be erased. So I stand by that comment, although I know you don’t like hearing it,” Pelosi said in remarks in response to Republicans defending Trump.

Pelosi previously said that Trump is “impeached for life.”

“This president is impeached for life regardless of any gamesmanship on the part of Mitch McConnell,” she said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “There is nothing the Senate can do to ever erase that.”

Pelosi on Wednesday also dismissed complaints from Republicans questioning why she held onto the articles of impeachment for nearly a month in an attempt to pressure Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to agree to demands for witness testimony.

She noted that she resisted calls for impeachment for months despite growing agitation among Democrats to launch the proceedings for other controversies that emerged long before Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate his political opponents while withholding nearly $400 million in military aid.

Many Democrats had called for launching an impeachment inquiry over the obstruction of justice allegations in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference, but Pelosi resisted.

“Don’t talk to me about my timing,” Pelosi said.

“For a long time, I resisted the calls from across the country for impeachment of the president for obvious violations of the Constitution that he had committed. But recognizing the divisiveness of impeachment, I held back. Frankly, I said, this president isn’t worth it. But when he acted the way he did in relationship to withholding funds from Ukraine in return for a benefit to him that was personal and political, he crossed a threshold. He gave us no choice,” Pelosi continued.

“He gave us no choice,” she repeated for emphasis.

Earlier on Wednesday, Pelosi named the seven Democrats who will serve as impeachment managers: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (Calif.), Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), and Reps. Val Demings (Fla.), Jason Crow (Colo.) and Sylvia Garcia (Texas).

During the House floor debate on the resolution, Pelosi sat in a row with all the impeachment managers except for Nadler, who was handling the debate for Democrats.

The Speaker concluded her remarks by comparing the gravity of Congress considering impeachment of a president to authorizing war.

“This is as serious as it gets for any of us. Only the vote to declare war would be something more serious than this. We take it very seriously. It’s not personal. It’s not political. It’s not partisan. It’s patriotic,” Pelosi said.

–This report was updated at 3:48 p.m.