Trump: Impeachment was evil and corrupt ...it was dirty cops
DONALD Trump turned on the ‘dirty cops, liars and leakers’ who tried to impeach him yesterday at a celebration of his acquittal.
The US president spoke at the White House to condemn the impeachment process as ‘evil and corrupt’ and said it had put him and his family ‘through hell’.
A day after a Republican-controlled Senate predictably voted to acquit him of impeachment charges over his behaviour with Ukraine, Mr Trump vented his fury at the Democrats and senior officials who he accused of trying to remove him from office.
‘It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops,’ he said of the impeachment attempt. ‘It was leakers and liars. I don’t know if other presidents would have been able to take it.’ He continued: ‘This should never ever happen to another president, ever.’
In an hour-long, unscripted speech, he said Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff were ‘vicious horrible people’.
He also denounced former FBI chief James Comey and said the bureau’s leadership were ‘scum’.
Mr Comey’s sacking in 2017 led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. Mr Trump dismissed the Russia probe as ‘all bull***t’.
At the event, he held up a copy of the Washington Post with the headline ‘Trump acquitted’. ‘It was the only good headline I’ve ever had in the Washington Post,’ he said of a newspaper owned by his frequent sparring partner,
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Although Republican senators made clear they were not interested in the merits of the impeachment allegations and wanted to acquit him quickly, Mr Trump said he had been delivered ‘total acquittal’.
He called his daughter Ivanka and First Lady Melania on stage to thank them ‘for sticking through it’. The president also took a swipe at Utah senator Mitt Romney after he broke ranks and voted for impeachment. He asked fellow Utah senator Mike Lee to take his constituents a message. ‘Tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney,’ he said.
Mr Trump also criticised Mr Romney and Mrs Pelosi for citing their religious faith when making their case against him. He said: ‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.’
The president also said Democrat leaders will ‘try and cook up other things’ against him.
He added: ‘We’ll probably have to do it again because these people have gone stone-cold crazy.’
Mr Trump and Mrs Pelosi, who ripped up the president’s speech after Tuesday’s State of the Union address, met earlier yesterday at Washington’s annual National Prayer Breakfast.
‘The Lord works in mysterious ways. I do not think he could have picked a better day to bring us all together,’ House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his prayer.
‘Tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney’