Pelosi: Trump comments are inviting foreign interference in elections

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday morning that President Trump’s suggestion that he would accept dirt on a political opponent from a foreign entity is inviting further interference in elections.

In a press conference, Pelosi blasted Trump’s comments as “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.”

Pelosi said that Trump’s comments, made a day earlier in an ABC News interview, lack “any ethical sense.”

“There is no ethical sense that informs his comments and his thinking,” Pelosi said.

Speaker Pelosi slams Pres. Trump after he told @GStephanopoulos, “I think I’d take” help if foreigners offered dirt on political opponents: “He does not know the difference between right and wrong and that’s probably the nicest thing I can say about him” https://t.co/WqwwDbNydZ pic.twitter.com/AFodjKo8Uh

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 13, 2019

{mosads}Trump raised eyebrows in an ABC News interview Wednesday when he said that, if offered damaging information on a political opponent by a foreign entity, “I think you might want to listen. There’s nothing wrong with listening.”

The president would not commit to alerting the FBI in such a scenario despite Director Christopher Wray saying it would be proper protocol, saying: “It’s not an interference. They have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go, maybe, to the FBI.”

Pelosi said Thursday that Trump “has a habit of making appalling statements” and “doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong,” and reiterated that she thinks Trump has been involved in a “criminal cover-up.”

“I believe that he has been involved in a criminal cover-up, I have said that before, and our investigation is demonstrating that,” Pelosi said, citing several incidents special counsel Robert Mueller said he investigated as potential obstruction of justice.

“There was an assault on our democracy, an assault on our country by the Russians that has been clearly documented by the intelligence community,” she added. “And the president of the United States, instead of coming to the defense of our democracy, has said it’s a hoax.”

Pelosi reaffirmed her resistance to impeachment proceedings, however, saying that the House would not initiate them based on “any one issue” but rather relying on “a methodical approach to the path that we are on, and this will be included in that.”

“It’s about investigating, it’s about litigating, it’s about getting the truth,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi has consistently called for her caucus to wait for various committee investigations into Trump’s administration and businesses to play out, saying Thursday: “Our chairmen are doing a great job.”

“I’m so proud of them winning in the courts and winning documents from the Justice Department with the thought of contempt or following up on subpoenas.”

–Updated at 11:59 a.m.