Trump unleashes impeachment fury in acquittal “celebration”
Exulting in his impeachment acquittal, a defiant President Donald Trump took a scorched-earth victory lap Thursday, unleashing his fury against those who tried to remove him from office and pointing ahead to his re-election campaign.
Triumphantly waving newspaper front pages that declared him “ACQUITTED,” Trump denounced the impeachment proceedings as a “disgrace” and portrayed himself as a victim of political foes he labeled “scum,” “sleazebags” and “crooked” people. Hours earlier, he unleashed broadsides that stunned the crowd at a bipartisan prayer breakfast.
“It was evil. It was corrupt. It was dirty cops,” Trump declared in a packed White House East Room, where he was surrounded by several hundred of his most loyal supporters. “This should never ever happen to another president ever.”
He conceded nothing in regard to charges that he improperly withheld a White House meeting and U.S. military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and other political matters.
“We went through hell unfairly,” he insisted. “Did nothing wrong.”
His comments were a clear sign that, post-impeachment, Trump is emboldened like never before as he barrels ahead in his re-election fight with a united Re
publican Party behind him. And his remarks stood in stark contrast to the apology offered by President Bill Clinton when he faced the American people in the aftermath of his own impeachment acquittal in 1999.
Trump had plenty more to say. Venting for more than an hour, he ticked off names of the “vicious and mean” people he felt had wronged him: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff and former FBI Director James Comey.
“Now we have that gorgeous word. I never thought it would sound so good,” Trump said. “It’s called total acquittal.”
One person unmentioned: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose involvement with Ukraine helped drive Trump’s push for investigations that led to his becoming just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached.
Trump’s remarks served as a dramatic contrast to his State of the Union address this week. Standing before Congress on Tuesday night, Trump hewed closely to his script and offered an optimistic message to the country, with no mention of impeachment.
This time, his remarks were rambling and replete with profanity, comedic interludes, tangents and asides. He ribbed Ohio Rep. James Jordan, a college wrestling champion, for rarely wearing a suit jacket, saying, “He’s obviously very proud of his body.”
He declared that the Republican Party had never been more unified and predicted momentum from the acquittal would carry him to re-election in November.
“This is really not a press conference. It’s not a speech. It’s not anything,” Trump remarked at one point. “It’s a celebration.”
Earlier on Thursday he shattered the usual veneer of bipartisanship at the National Prayer Breakfast by unleashing his fury against those who tried to impeach him, with Pelosi sitting on stage.
His remarks were especially jarring coming after a series of Scripture-quoting speeches, including a keynote address by Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor and president of a conservative think tank, who had bemoaned a “crisis of contempt and polarization” in the nation and urged those gathered to ”love your enemies.”
“I don’t know if I agree with you,” Trump said as he took the microphone, and then he proceeded to demonstrate it.
“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,” he said in an apparent reference to Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a longtime Trump critic who cited his faith in becoming the only Republican to vote for Trump’s removal.
“Nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when you know that is not so,” he said, a reference to Pelosi, who has offered that message for the president when the two leaders have sparred publicly.