Pelosi sets off Trump with ‘cover-up’ talk
WASHINGTON — A day that began with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging caution on impeachment devolved with tensions escalating between the White House and congressional Democrats, as President Trump made a show of cutting off their legislative negotiations and Pelosi suggested his actions were impeachable.
Pelosi had tried in a closeddoor session Wednesday to mollify Democrats who want to impeach Trump, but her comment afterward that Trump is engaged in a “cover-up” prompted the president to
storm out of a scheduled White House meeting with congressional Democrats a short time later.
Trump then called reporters to the White House Rose Garden to declare he wouldn’t work with Democrats on infrastructure, the topic of the canceled meeting, or other areas of bipartisan interest until they finish investigating his administration.
“I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump said.
Pelosi later doubled down on her comment, suggesting that the more Trump resists congressional investigations, the more likely impeachment becomes.
“This is why I think the president was so steamed off this morning, because the fact is in plain sight, in the public domain, this president is obstructing justice and he’s engaged in a cover-up, and that could be an impeachable offense,” the San Francisco Democrat said at a progressive conference.
She noted that one of the impeachment counts that the House Judiciary Committee approved in 1974 against President Richard Nixon was for ignoring congressional subpoenas. “As they say, the coverup is frequently worse than the crime,” Pelosi said.
Democrats say they are unified in wanting to conduct oversight of the Trump administration, but some fear impeachment would distract them and the public from legislation the House is passing that they say would benefit Americans. As the 2020 election draws ever closer, Democrats are looking for a message that could help them keep the House, flip the Senate and defeat Trump.
But the dust-up Wednesday served as a distraction from the inability to reach a consensus over infrastructure and seemed to pour cold water on the possibility of any bipartisan legislating ahead of the election.
The back-and-forth began Wednesday morning when House Democrats gathered in the basement of the Capitol to address a growing divide within the party over whether to proceed with impeachment. Several House Democrats have gone public with such calls in reaction to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report finding instances in which Trump may have obstructed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as the president’s subsequent blanket refusal to cooperate with congressional Democratic inquiries into his administration.
Pelosi had committee chairs talk about their investigatory work and reiterated her advice to let the probes play out before taking a step toward impeachment. According to Democrats who were in the room, Pelosi offered guidance while allowing lawmakers to voice their opinions about impeachment. The pro-impeachment viewpoint remained a minority, said San Mateo Rep. Jackie Speier, who believes it’s time to take that step.
Afterward, Pelosi told reporters, “We do believe it’s important to follow the facts, we believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up — in a cover-up. And that was the nature of the meeting.”
Trump was irritated by the “cover-up” remark, and went into the planned White House meeting about a possible infrastructure package with Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and other Democrats with something to say.
“I walked into the room and I told Sen. Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, I want to do infrastructure, I want to do it more than you want to do it, I’d be really good at that,” Trump recounted in his Rose Garden news conference. “But you know what, I can’t do it under these circumstances, so get these phony investigations over with.”
According to a person who was briefed on the session, Trump walked into the room without greeting anyone or taking a seat. He told the assembled House and Senate Democrats that he wanted to get agreements on infrastructure, trade, agriculture and other topics, but that Pelosi had said something terrible that he wanted to address.
Trump said he would not work on legislation with Democrats while they were engaged in “two tracks,” the other being investigations of his administration. He told Democrats they could work together when the investigations were done and left the room before anyone could speak, said the source, who was not authorized to speak for attribution.
“Instead of walking in happily into a meeting, I walk in to look at people that had just said that I was doing a coverup. I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump told reporters afterward. “Let them play their games — we’re going to go one track at a time, let them finish up and we’ll be all set.”
Democrats dismissed the episode as a ruse — an excuse for Trump to walk away from a negotiation that he knew he could not close. The incidents served to amplify the collision course Trump and Democrats seem to be traveling toward — either a messy court battle over executive authority or impeachment.
After an April meeting in which Trump and Democrats agreed to work toward a $2 trillion infrastructure package, Senate Republicans quickly cast doubt on the prospects of any such deal. Wednesday’s meeting was supposed to cover how the plan would be paid for, including Trump’s ideas.
The night before, the White House released a letter from Trump to Pelosi and Schumer saying he would want his U.S.Mexico-Canada trade deal passed through Congress before any infrastructure package.
Pelosi and Schumer said they had been prepared to take Wednesday’s sit-down seriously, but believe Trump intended all along to derail the meeting because he wasn’t prepared to negotiate on infrastructure.
Pelosi called the episode “orchestrated” and noted that Trump’s Rose Garden news conference had posters referencing the time and money spent on the Mueller investigation and its ultimate finding there was no criminal conspiracy with Russia. She pointed out that those were clearly prepared well in advance of her “cover-up” remarks.
“To watch what happened in the White House would make your jaw drop,” Schumer said. “He came up with this preplanned excuse. It was clear this was not a spontaneous move on the president’s part . ... We can do both (tracks). It’s clear the president doesn’t want to do any of that.”
Pelosi called the episode “very, very, very strange” but said she wasn’t surprised.
“I pray for the president of the United States, and I pray for the United States of America,” Pelosi said.
Trump at least appreciated that. “Nancy, thank you so much for your prayers, I know you truly mean it!” he tweeted.