Delegate Stacey Plaskett could not cast a vote on the House floor last month to impeach Donald Trump, although she agreed that he should have been impeached.
Because Plaskett represents the Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory and not a state, she is one of six non-voting members of Congress. The other five represent Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Plaskett will be able to make her case against Trump as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has chosen her as one of the House impeachment managers.
The team of impeachment managers led by Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin will argue before the Senate that Trump incited a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Plaskett has accused Trump of “conduct that foreseeably resulted in the imminent lawless actions of his supporters.”
As is the case with most impeachment managers, Plaskett brings considerable legal experience to the case, including time in the Bronx District Attorney’s office and as a senior counsel at the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush.
Plaskett told the AP that she’d be speaking at the trial for individuals who were “particularly traumatized by what happened on January 6th. You know, as an African-American, as a woman seeing individuals storming our most sacred place of democracy, wearing anti-Semitic, racist, neo-Nazi, white supremacy logos on their bodies and wreaking the most vile and hateful things.”
Plaskett lobbied to be an impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2019 but ultimately wasn’t chosen. She said receiving the unexpected call from Pelosi this time “really gave [her] a charge.”
The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump starts in the Senate next week.
