Nancy Pelosi‘s childish antics were on full display Tuesday night when the House Speaker ripped up President Donald Trump‘s State of the Union Address on live TV.
The controversial action didn’t go over well with many Americans, and now one Florida lawmaker is taking action against Pelosi.
In a post on Twitter, U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz announced that he was filing an ethics complaint against Pelosi for destroying Trump’s speech. Attached to the tweet was a letter from Gaetz addressed to Ethics Committee Chairman Ted Deutch to open an investigation “into Speaker Pelosi’s flagrant violation of decorum, as defined in clauses 1 and 2 of House Rule XXIII, and request a criminal referral for her potential violation of 18 U.S.C. §2071 (Concealment, removal, or mutilation of documents), following President Trump’s recent State of the Union address of February 4, 2020. Her unseemly behavior certainly warrants censure.”
BREAKING: I’m filing an ethics complaint against @SpeakerPelosi for destroying @realDonaldTrump‘s State of the Union speech.
Her conduct was beneath the dignity of the House, and a potential violation of law (18 USC 2071).
Nobody is above the law. She must be held accountable. pic.twitter.com/dXPPWQNtI8
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) February 6, 2020
Gaetz believes that Pelosi potentially committed a crime by violating 18 U.S.C. §2071:
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Gaetz later appeared on “The Ingraham Angle” telling Laura Ingraham that he will join two other Republicans — Reps. Lee Zeldin and of New York and Kay Granger of Texas — to file the charges.
“We ought to apply the same standards to the Democrats that they want to apply to us and there will be an ethics investigation to Nancy Pelosi and we will start the ball rolling to have her censured.”
.@RepMattGaetz says he will be filing ethics charges against Speaker Pelosi for destroying “official records” when she tore up Pres. Trump’s #SOTU speech
pic.twitter.com/xurHHsERbI— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 6, 2020
She is as totally disrespectable from the moment he started to speak to with her facial expressions and moving and ripping on the papers. She should be kicked out of Congress. Just today she talked about the disrespect coming out to f the White House, what she did was a distraction for the entire speech. Shame on her.
she needs to be removed her total disrect for our president was horrible i would feel this way whoever our president was she’s disrecting our country
She needs to be removed from office! Totally Disrespectful to our nation and I am sure this type of conduct does not look good for other Nations to witness…..and then we do nothing to her for her actions…..The House of Representatives should have been out raged about her actions….