Rep. Nancy Pelosi was ridiculed on Twitter Thursday over her reaction to the indictment of former President Donald Trump — as she appeared to butcher a key principle of criminal law.
“The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law,” Pelosi, 83, wrote in her post.
“No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence,” she added. “Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
Her failure to recognize that Trump is granted the presumption of innocence, one of the most basic requirements of a fair trial and an internationally recognized human right by the United Nations, sparked criticism on the social media platform.
“We don’t have to prove our innocence in America, Mrs. Pelosi,” Harmeet Dhillon, a former Trump campaign legal adviser, gently informed the California Democrat in a Twitter post.
In a much more forceful reaction, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin derided Pelosi as a “moron” and a “Stalinist” over her post.
“Stalinist Pelosi. Prove innocent? It’s innocent until proven guilty, moron. Or at least used to be,” Levin raged.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) echoed Levin, tweeting, “The right to ‘prove innocence’? This is America, not Stalinist Russia.”
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) rebuked the former House speaker, calling her view of the justice system “warped.”
“Weird, I thought the standard was ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Welcome to Biden and Pelosi’s warped America…” she wrote in a tweet.
Tom Fitton, the president of right-wing watchdog group Judicial Watch, argued the tweet “confirms” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump is “malicious.”
“Pelosi confirms malicious political prosecution by suggesting Trump is guilty until proven innocent!” Fitton wrote on Twitter.
Trump is expected to be arraigned next week on more than 30 counts of business fraud related to a 2016 “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The $130,000 payment was made by former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who allegedly sought to keep her silent about an alleged 2006 affair with Trump.
Trump has vehemently maintained that he is innocent and Bragg’s case is a “witch hunt.”
