Pelosi says she will ‘never forgive Trump and his lackeys’ for Capitol riot ‘trauma’

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed out at former president Donald Trump saying that she will “never forgive” him for the trauma that the Capitol riots of 6 January inflicted on the congressional staff.

Speaker Pelosi said during a press conference on Wednesday that she “did not fault anybody” for not predicting what happened. There were no preparations that could have occurred where “anybody could predict that the President of the United States would incite an insurrection and a violent one,” she said.

She said that she was also proud of the work done by the 6 January committee so far “for the actions they are taking to seek the truth and to protect the Capitol further” from any such attacks.

She talked about the trauma of the riot on the Congressional staff and added that she’ll never forgive Mr Trump and his “lackeys and bullies” that she claimed he sent to the Capitol building to disrupt a joint session of Congress counting electoral votes to formalise Joe Biden’s victory.

“Well, I’ll never forgive, I’ll never forgive, the former President of the United States and his lackeys and his bullies that he sent the Capitol, for the trauma that was exerted on our staff.”

She added: “These are largely younger people, who come with idealism to work in the Capitol, from either side of the aisle. And for us who sign up for this when we run for office, it’s bad enough, for our families to see the danger we were in.”

Ms Pelosi emphasised that such trauma cannot be erased. “When I saw what it meant to the staff, the way it traumatised them, it was frightening. That’s something that you cannot, you cannot just say, ‘well, we’ll do legislation to make sure this or that doesn’t happen again.’ You cannot erase that.”

A few days ago, one of the Capitol rioters sentenced to jail had said that she would take the time in jail to do yoga and detox.

The other notorious rioter, known as “QAnon Shaman” for his horned headdress, was sentenced by a federal judge to 41 months in prison for his role in the deadly 6 January attack by Mr Trump’s followers.