Nancy Pelosi Flashback: Republicans ‘Paralyzed with Hatred,’ Impeaching Clinton ‘with a Vengeance’

A flashback video that resurfaced on Friday shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accusing Republicans of being “paralyzed with hatred” and pursuing the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton “with a vengeance.” Pelosi snapped at a reporter on Thursday after he asked if she hated President Trump.

“Today the Republican majority is not judging the president with fairness, but impeaching him with a vengeance,” Pelosi stated in the flashback clip.

“In the investigation of the president, fundamental principles which Americans hold dear – privacy, fairness, checks and balances – have been seriously violated,” she said.

“And why? We are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton,” she continued, warning that the country will suffer until “Republicans free themselves from this hatred”:

The remarks stand in stark contrast to Pelosi’s handling of the impeachment inquiry into Trump. Tensions reached a boiling point at the conclusion of the speaker’s Thursday press conference after reporter James Rosen asked if she hates the president – a word that irked Pelosi to the point of turning around and addressing the question wholly at the podium.

“I don’t hate anybody,” she said as she wagged her finger at the reporter and cited her Catholic upbringing. “We don’t hate anybody, not anybody in the world.”

“I did not accuse you. I asked a question. Rep. Collins yesterday suggested that the Democrats are [pursuing impeachment] simply because they don’t like the guy,” Rosen said. “I think it’s an important point.”

Pelosi called Trump a “coward” for what she deemed his inadequate response to gun violence and said he was in denial over climate change, but she argued that those are issues that should be determined in an election.

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office,” she said, trying to add a sense of legitimacy to her party’s partisan impeachment efforts.

“As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love and always pray for the president,” she continued, adding that she does so “all the time.”

“So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that,” she warned:

Another inconvenient flashback resurfaced this week, featuring House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who warned that partisan impeachment efforts into Clinton would “produce decisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come.”

“And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people. There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment supported by one of our major political parties and opposed by the other,” Nadler stated.

“Such an impeachment will produce decisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions,” he continued.

“The American people have heard the allegations against the president, and they overwhelmingly oppose impeaching him. They elected President Clinton. They still support him,” he said in remarks that coincide, precisely, with the same arguments Trump allies are making today.

“We have no right to overturn the considerate judgment of the American people,” he declared: