President Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced what he decried as a "partisan" crusade being waged against him by Democrats in a rambling, six-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi ahead of a vote on impeachment by the full House of Representatives.
"You 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," Trump wrote in the letter, which he sent one day before the House is expected to impeach him. "It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!"
House Democrats have unveiled two articles of impeachment against Trump for abuse of power and obstructing Congress. At the heart of the charges against the president are his efforts to solicit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rivals and his decision to temporarily withhold nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.
In his letter to Pelosi, Trump denied any wrongdoing and called the obstruction of Congress charge "preposterous and dangerous." He accused Democrats of being "unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box" during the 2016 election and of engaging in a three-year crusade to "overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes."
"You view democracy as your enemy!" the president continued. "As you know very well, this impeachment drive has nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!"
Trump is set to be the third president in U.S. history to be impeached on Wednesday. His raucous letter was swiftly condemned and mocked on social media by political observers.
"This letter is beneath the dignity of the office Trump currently occupies," tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss.
Former Obama administration official Jon Favreau wrote, "Trump’s deranged, unhinged letter makes a pretty compelling case that the President is unfit for office."
"I read Trump's letter to Pelosi and highlighted everything that I remember hearing before from someone on Fox News," tweeted Bobby Lewis, a researcher at Media Matters, a progressive media watchdog. (It's well known that Trump has something of a symbiotic relationship with the conservative cable news outlet.)
Other social media users described the president's as "unhinged," "deranged" and even "batsh*t."
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