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Pelosi: Trump Can't Be Exonerated if Senators Don't Call Witnesses

By Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY

30 January 20

 

ouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that President Donald Trump can't be exonerated if senators don't call witnesses in his impeachment trial.

“He will not be acquitted,” Pelosi told reporters. “You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial. And you don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation.”

The speaker was responding to repeated questions from reporters about Democrats’ next move if the Senate clears Trump.

“We’re still prayerful, hopeful,” she insisted, “that the Senate will have the courage to hear the truth.”

Does she think Trump will be chastened and understand that Congress is watching him, she was asked, or will he be emboldened?

Pelosi restated the question before answering.

“Does the president know right from wrong? I don’t think so,” she said. “That’s all I can say.”

Channeling Paul Revere, Pelosi warned that democracy and the nation’s system of government are at stake.

“The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming,” she said. “And the president has led a clear path for them to interfere, once again, in our election as they are currently doing.”

Pelosi, who has said before that all roads lead to Russia, added: “I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally or financially, but he doesn’t see Russia as an adversary.”