Washington: Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker and top Democrat, on Sunday defended the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, saying that the White House resident has crossed the line on Ukraine and violated the Constitution.
The House of Representatives, where the Democrats enjoy a majority, had impeached Trump last month. Now, the Senate, where the Republicans are in majority, needs to put Trump on trial before he can be removed from the White House.
"He (Trump) is not worth it but when he crossed that line on Ukraine he violated the constitution in such a way that could not be ignored, Pelosi said in an interview to a private American channel.
Pelosi on Friday said that she would "soon" send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate, amid allegations by Republicans that she is delaying the trial.
But, again, he'll be impeached forever, Pelosi said defending her decision to delay in sending the impeachment proceedings to the Senate.
Pelosi said that whatever the Democrats wanted in terms of the impeachment was accomplished.
"What we did want, though, and we think we accomplished in the past few weeks, is that we wanted the public to see the need for witnesses, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of what happened, documentation which the president has prevented from coming to the Congress as we review this, she said.
It is about a fair trial. They take an oath to have a fair trial. We think that would be with witnesses and documentation. So, now the ball is in their court to either do that, or pay a price for not doing it, she said.
Trump is seeking his re-election in the November presidential polls. Over a dozen Democratic candidates are seeking to win the primary to be party's presidential nominee to challenge Trump. Pelosi said she has not eliminated the possibility of ever subpoenaing and going forward with former national security advisor John Bolton.
"But he has said in this two weeks' period, there was another piece of progress that we made, that he would respond to a subpoena from the United States Senate, she said. Bolton on Monday said he is ready to testify before the Senate on Trump's impeachment trial, months after he was fired by President Trump.
Pelosi alleged that Trump is preventing witnesses to depose and come forward. We have done our job. We've defended the constitution of the United States. We would hope that the Senate would do that as well, she said.
This is a constitutional challenge, and we feel very proud of the courage of our members to vote to impeach the president. There's nothing that the Senate can do that can ever erase that, she said.
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