In Trump-Nixon impeachment comparison, Pelosi raises specter of resignation
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is amplifying her unfavourable comparison of President Donald Trump to fellow Republican Richard Nixon, saying that disgraced president at least cared enough about the country to leave office before his impeachment.
The top Democrat in Congress told reporters last week that Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate one of his potential opponents in the 2020 election “makes what Nixon did look almost small.”
In a CBS interview broadcast on Sunday, she alluded to Nixon’s resignation after the Watergate scandal involving a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters and the subsequent cover-up.
“I mean, what the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did, that at some point Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognise that this could not continue,” Pelosi said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Nixon, whose name has become synonymous with scandal and ignominy for many Americans, resigned in 1974 after the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against him but before the full House voted on the issue, and he was not impeached.
He is the only US president who has resigned from office.
Pelosi for months resisted calls from her more liberal Democratic lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings, but said Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy compelled her to open the inquiry against the president.
Since launching the proceedings on Sept. 24, Pelosi has not been in the room as the House Intelligence Committee held public hearings on Trump’s impeachment. However, her voice is loud and clear on the outside, where she drives messaging in a nuanced but sharp manner.
Her Nixon comparison came amid the trial of longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, a self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” who worked for Nixon’s re-election campaign and has Nixon’s face tattooed on his back. Stone was convicted on Friday of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.