Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNN's Christiane Amanpour she firmly believes President Trump was not acquitted by the Senate during the impeachment trial. Pelosi reiterated that he will be "impeached forever."
"But he was acquitted, his poll ratings are —" Amanpour started to state.
"There was no acquittal," Pelosi interjected.
"By the Senate," Amanpour explained.
"You can’t have an acquittal unless you have a trial, and you can’t have a trial until you have witnesses and documents. So he can say he’s acquitted and the headlines can say acquitted, but he’s impeached forever, branded with that, and not vindicated," Pelosi said.
The Senate voted to acquit Trump on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after they voted against having more witnesses and documents being presented during the trial. Republicans argued it was on Democrats in House to have waited for more time to include additional witnesses, but instead they rushed through and sent a half-done impeachment.
During the same interview, Pelosi explained that she would not have ripped up her copy of Trump's 2020 State of the Union speech if there were no lies.
"I almost didn't when the soldier was coming home, that was so beautiful. But get back to the bottom of the page and there he goes again," she said.
Jody Jones, one of President Trump's guests at the State of the Union, criticized Pelosi (D-CA) for ripping up the speech, saying all of the guests were shocked when she did it.
"It felt like she ripped our hearts out. Everybody there, all the guests, we couldn’t believe it. I don’t care how you feel about somebody. That was probably the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen in my life. Because, when she did that, it just tore us up. We couldn’t believe it," Jones said.
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