Former Speaker of the House and longtime Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was mocked — and fact-checked by Twitter — for her reaction to Donald Trump’s indictment, which included an assertion that Trump would have a “right” to “prove innocence.”
A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Trump on charges pertaining to his alleged falsification of business records to cover-up a hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign on Thursday, prompting an outcry from even anti-Trump Republicans.
But Pelosi defended the indictment on Twitter, declaring that “The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law.”
“No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right,” continued Pelosi.
The comments have drawn criticism and resulted in Twitter adding a contextual note to Pelosi’s tweet, observing that “Law in the US assumes the innocence of a defendant and the prosecution must prove guilt for a conviction.”
Bradley Moss, a legal commentator who defended a federal search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property last year, implored Pelosi to “please delete and correct this post.”
“He doesn’t have to ‘prove his innocence’. It’s the Government’s job to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” added Moss.
“This is exactly backward. Under our justice system, no one has to prove innocence,” argued former congressman Justin Amash, who voted in favor of both articles of impeachment against Trump in 2019. “The state must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. You’d hope a former speaker would know the basics of law and be precise, especially in such an unprecedented and seemingly flimsy prosecution.”
“These IQ 105 senior citizens run the country,” remarked Wilfred Reilly, a columnist for National Review.
“Stalinist Pelosi. Prove innocent? It’s innocent until proven guilty, moron. Or at least used to be,” lamented Fox News’ Mark Levin.
Trump himself has not weighed in on Pelosi’s statement, but he characterized the indictment as “Political Persecution” and accused the Democratic Party of having “lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,.’”
But now they’ve done the unthinkable,” continued Trump, “indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference.”
