WASHINGTON—House Speaker Pelosi was forced to walk back a statement she wrote and delivered in a televised address during the lead-up to one of her latest impeachment efforts.
Speaking from her seat in the House Chamber, the four-term Speaker made the correction during a motion to table a motion for a debate on criminal justice reform. The Speaker explained that, while she has insisted “no one is above the law,” she must have “plumb forgot” about the fact that her husband might be.
“Just chalk that one up to age, I guess,” Pelosi stated. “That, and partisanship, of course. Republican obstructionism — that was likely an aggravating factor as well,” she continued. Currently in her 18th term as a U.S. Representative from California, Pelosi said that her husband, Paul Pelosi, may not technically be “above” the law as law is an abstract concept incapable of occupying any position in space. Paul is more accurately “athwart” or “aside” the law, she clarified.
“When you’ve been elected and served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America and you have to say that and other mouthfuls all the time as Speaker, which I am and have been chosen by people as their elected representative and I take that very seriously and have spoken at length and, as the Speaker, and so of course we’re bound to have to make several mistakes every now and again, and again.”
Pelosi proffered her comments immediately before calling an unscheduled recess and adjourning to her office, returning refreshed after 20 minutes. The Speaker’s husband of almost 60 years had just been arrested for drunk driving in Napa County after a two-vehicle crash near the couple’s vineyard.
With a history of driving under the influence of alcohol and causing deadly collisions in the process, Mr. Pelosi was swiftly released from police custody and issued a public apology for his trouble.