US President Donald Trump in a scathing letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sought to halt impeachment proceedings against him by the lower chamber of the Congress, which is all set to start the process with a debate on Wednesday (December 18).
“This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of the American legislative history,” Trump said in a letter to the Pelosi.
Asserting that the Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognisable under any standard of constitutional theory, interpretation or jurisprudence, Trump said they include no crimes, no misdemeanours and no offenses whatsoever.
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“You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment,” said Trump, who is the third American president to be impeached. He also tweeted regarding the same.
….They want to Impeach me (I’m not worried!), and yet they were all breaking the law in so many ways. How can they do that and yet impeach a very successful (Economy Plus) President of the United States, who has done nothing wrong? These people are Crazy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2019
“By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution and you are declaring an open war on American democracy,” he said.
Trump said he had been deprived of basic constitutional due process from the beginning of this “impeachment scam” right up until the present.
“I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the constitution, including the right to present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call that was made,” he said.
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Trump said since the moment he won the elections, the Democrat Party has been possessed by “impeachment fever”.
“There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in the Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American people,” he said.
“While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record,” Trump said.