US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has blasted President Donald Trump’s insult-laden letter urging her to halt the impeachment proceedings, describing the letter's content as “ridiculous” and “really sick.”
Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat in Congress, told reporters on Tuesday that she had not gotten the opportunity to read the Republican president’s whole letter, which accused Democrats of waging an “unconstitutional abuse of power” by moving forward with an impeachment vote.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t really fully read it, we’ve been working. I’ve seen the essence of it though and it’s really sick.”
The president’s letter accused Pelosi of putting on a “false display of solemnity” throughout the inquiry and declared that “no intelligent person believes what you are saying.”
In Trump’s letter to Pelosi earlier on Tuesday, he issued a stark warning to congressional Democrats, saying that if they pursue impeachment against him, they will be “declaring war on American democracy.”
The president also called any impeachment effort an “illegal partisan coup.”
The House will vote Wednesday on whether to approve charges against Trump stemming from his effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.
Trump allegedly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to probe the former vice president and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Republicans have defended Trump and accused Democrats of a partisan effort aimed at overturning his upset 2016 victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
If the charges are approved in the House, the matter would be sent to the Republican-led Senate to hold a trial on whether to remove Trump from office.
Democrats, who enjoy a 36-seat majority in the House, are expected to win an impeachment vote, which requires a simple majority.
Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate, where they appear likely to prevail in any trial against Trump, which would require a two-thirds majority of those present to remove him from office.
Trump would be the third US president to be impeached. No US president has been removed as a direct result of impeachment.
Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before he could be removed, while Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached by the House, respectively in 1868 and 1998, but not convicted by the Senate.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
