Pathetic

Nancy Pelosi calls Mitch McConnell 'so pathetic' for not voting to impeach Trump

Joshua Bote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to mince words against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell after he opted against impeaching former President Donald Trump.

The vote fell along largely partisan lines, with 43 Republicans voting to acquit the former president. Seven Republicans crossed party lines to vote against Trump.

In her statement issued shortly after the impeachment proceedings, she roundly criticized McConnell for shutting down the Senate in January when the House first voted to impeach the president.

"It is so pathetic that Senator McConnell kept the Senate shut down so that the Senate could not receive the Article of Impeachment and has used that as his excuse for not voting to convict Donald Trump," Pelosi said in a statement Saturday.

She also condemned the 42 other Senate Republicans, saying they chose to "abandon the Constitution, the Country and the American people with this vote."

"Other Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold Trump accountable for igniting a violent insurrection to cling to power will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history," she said.

And yet, despite his vote signaling otherwise, McConnell condemned Trump in the Senate chambers for propagating support for the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, saying that they "were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president" and his "false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole," per NBC News.

The Senate needed a two-thirds majority in order to impeach the president; in other words, ten more Republicans needed to vote against their party this time around.

During the last go-around for impeachment, Pelosi accused McConnell of staging a "coverup" weeks before the Senate voted against hearing witnesses in the Senate trial. That impeachment ended in Trump's acquittal, by a 47-53 vote.