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Pelosi says Trump is ‘becoming self-impeachable’

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May 8, 2019 at 10:19 a.m. EDT
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said President Trump is “becoming self-impeachable,” pointing to his efforts to fight all subpoenas from congressional investigations and prevent key aides from testifying before Congress. (Video: Washington Post Live)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that President Trump is “becoming self-impeachable,” pointing to his efforts to fight all subpoenas from congressional investigations and prevent key aides from testifying before Congress.

“The point is that every single day, whether it’s obstruction, obstruction, obstruction — obstruction of having people come to the table with facts, ignoring subpoenas . . . every single day, the president is making a case — he’s becoming self-impeachable, in terms of some of the things that he is doing,” Pelosi said at a Washington Post Live event.

It was not immediately clear what she meant by “self-impeachable.” The House speaker has resisted calls by some members of her party to pursue impeachment proceedings against the president.

On Tuesday, she made a similar argument about Trump’s actions, comparing him to President Richard M. Nixon. She noted that one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon was that he ignored congressional subpoenas.

“That could be part of an impeachable offense,” Pelosi said of Trump at Tuesday’s event, which was hosted by Cornell University. “Every day, he’s obstructing justice by saying, ‘This one shouldn’t testify, that one shouldn’t testify,’ and the rest. So he’s making a case. But he’s just trying to goad us into impeachment.”

Democrats have repeatedly decried Trump’s resistance as stonewalling, maintaining that the president is thwarting Congress’s ability to conduct oversight.

Pelosi’s interview with The Post’s Robert Costa came hours before the House Judiciary Committee was expected to vote to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt for not complying with a subpoena for the full report of a special counsel investigation by Robert S. Mueller III. House Democrats are then expected to take the matter to court to let a judge decide on the merits.

In Wednesday’s interview, Pelosi also mocked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s declaration of “case closed” in the wake of the Mueller investigation.

“Isn’t that so sad? In for a dime, in for a dollar, right?” she said of McConnell (R-Ky.), describing his support for Trump. “You might as well go all the way.”