President Trump on Thursday lashed out at Democrats after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the House would draft articles of impeachment against him.
The president in a pair of tweets denied wrongdoing and bemoaned that the decision could have historical repercussions.
“The Do Nothing, Radical Left Democrats have just announced that they are going to seek to Impeach me over NOTHING,” Trump tweeted.
Pelosi announced Thursday morning that the House would move forward with impeaching Trump, saying his actions left them “no choice” but to pursue his removal from office.
“The president’s actions have seriously violated the Constitution,” Pelosi said in a televised address against a backdrop of American flags. “Our democracy is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act.”
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham excoriated Pelosi’s announcement in a statement, accusing congressional Democrats of abusing their power, lying to the public and making “a mockery of the law.”
“How many Democrats will join her driving right off the cliff with this illegitimate impeachment hoax?” Grisham asked. “Speaker Pelosi’s instruction to advance this impeachment process – one that has violated every precedent – moves this Country toward the most partisan and illegitimate subversion of the Constitution in our history.”
Democrats have spent the past month hearing from witnesses who testified in private and public sessions about the president’s actions toward Ukraine.
The House Intelligence Committee released a 300-page report this week laying out allegations that Trump abused his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. Democrats allege that Trump conditioned a White House meeting for the Ukrainian president and aid for Ukraine on a public announcement of those investigations.
Three constitutional law scholars said at a hearing Wednesday they believed Trump’s actions were impeachable offenses, though one Republican-requested witness disputed that there was enough evidence to remove the president from office.
Trump has used a variety of defenses as the impeachment process has played out. He has insisted that his contacts with the Ukrainian president were “perfect,” denying that he pressured his counterpart or that there was any quid pro quo.
The president and his allies have simultaneously argued the process in the House has been fundamentally flawed and does not give proper rights to the White House to craft a defense.
Still, Trump and others in his administration appeared to accept that an impeachment vote was a foregone conclusion.
“Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business,” Trump tweeted an hour before Pelosi announced plans to draft articles of impeachment.
Updated at 1:02 p.m.