Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi condemned President Donald Trump on Thursday after his comments a day earlier about opposition research from foreign actors.
“Yesterday, once again, the president gave us evidence that he does not know right from wrong,” Pelosi said during her weekly press conference. “It’s a very sad thing — very sad thing that he does not know right from wrong.”
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Her comments were in reference to an interview Wednesday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. During the sit-down, Trump said he would not necessarily notify the FBI if a foreign entity offered to provide him with information on his political opponent.
“I think maybe you do both,” Trump said in response to a question on whether he’d listen to the information or notify the FBI. “I think you might want to listen. There’s nothing wrong with listening … If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI.”
Pelosi said the House’s ongoing investigations into Trump are not politically motivated but have “everything to do with patriotism.” She also reiterated her belief that the president was involved in a criminal coverup.
“The Mueller report showed obstruction of justice at least 10, perhaps 11 places,” Pelosi said. “But for the president to be so cavalier to disregard, to be indifferent to law and any sense of ethics about who we are as a country, to say he would invite foreign intervention further. The intelligence community, with great confidence, has put forth that the Russians interfered in our election — that’s an assault on our democracy.”
“This president says it’s a hoax. He takes an oath to protect and defend the constitution, but I guess it doesn’t include him … to be held accountable, to obey the law,” she continued before revealing legislation Democrats are working on to require campaigns to report foreign offers of assistance. (RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Claims A ‘Victory’ During The First 100 Days)
“Shouldn’t even, I mean, it’s so self-evident as a matter of ethics, but we’ll have to codify it. Mandating a duty to report for campaigns reporting foreign interventions in our elections. Protecting our elections with paper ballots,” Pelosi said. “That’s our election security bill that [Democratic California Rep.] Zoe Lofgren is working on.”
Despite calling Trump’s comments “appalling,” the speaker stopped short of proceeding with any impeachment hearings.
“What we want to do is have a methodical approach to the path that we are on,” Pelosi said. “This will be included in that — but not any one issue is going to trigger, oh now we’ll go do this.
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