Five
highlights from Trump's angry, bizarre letter to Nancy Pelosi
Trump
claims in his missive – which he says historians will study one day – he’s been
treated worse than those accused of witchcraft
Adam
Gabbatt
@adamgabbatt
Tue 17 Dec
2019 21.57 GMTLast modified on Tue 17 Dec 2019 22.23 GMT
On Tuesday,
Donald Trump showed that it is not only through the spoken word or his Twitter
account that he is able to raise eyebrows, when he sent an angry and frequently
bizarre letter to House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The
six-page missive was remarkable for a number of reasons, not least for Trump’s
claim he has been subjected to worse treatment than that endured by people
accused of witchcraft in the 17th century.
Here are
five highlights, or otherwise, from Trump’s dispatch.
1) ‘More
due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.’
Fourteen
women and five men were hung in colonial Massachusetts the late 1690s, for
supposedly engaging in witchcraft. “Spectral evidence” was admissible in the
trials – evidence where a witness had a dream, or apparition, which featured
the alleged witch engaged in dark deeds. Spectral evidence is yet to feature in
Trump’s impeachment hearings.
2) ‘You
[Nancy Pelosi] are offending Americans of faith by continually saying: “I pray
for the president,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is
meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will
have to live with it, not I!’
Nancy
Pelosi has repeatedly said she prays for Donald Trump. In October, the House
speaker said she was praying for his “health”, after Trump had what she
described as a “meltdown” during a meeting with Democratic leaders. It’s not
the first time she has claimed to be appealing to a higher power on Trump’s
behalf. It seems Trump doesn’t like it. Or believe it.
3) ‘There
are not many people who could have taken the punishment inflicted during this
period of time, and yet done so much for the success of America and its
citizens.’
Trump’s
claims that he alone could withstand such rough treatment from his opponents
rather fall down here – located as they are in a six-page ode to self-pity.
4) ‘You
view democracy as your enemy!’
This
exclamation comes midway through the letter, after Trump claims the Democrats
have developed “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. Trump is not confident of the odds
Democrats will recover from the malady: “You will never get over it!” he
writes.
5) ‘I write
this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a
permanent and indelible record. 100 years from now, when people look back at
this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can
never happen to another president again.’
There’s a
slightly self-satisfied air to the final paragraph of the letter, as if Trump
feels he has delivered a piece of soaring oratory which will be pored over by
scholars in years to come. At least here, in a sense, Trump is correct. People
are unlikely to forget “this affair” – his presidency – for a long, long time
and historians of the future will certainly examine this letter: just perhaps
not in the way Trump would want them to.
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