Fact check: Fake Nancy Pelosi quote on Trump impeachment trial acquittal

McKenzie Sadeghi, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: Nancy Pelosi said, 'It will be a cold day in hell before Trump gets acquitted again'

Following former President Donald Trump's acquittal in his second impeachment trial, social media users began sharing posts of a fabricated quote claiming to come from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"She (Pelosi) was quoted: 'It will be a cold day in hell before Trump gets acquitted again.' True story," reads a Feb. 14 text meme on Facebook. The post was shared by the page Stupid Stuff Biden Says and has over 2,300 shares.

"So that's why it was 36 below this morning," a Facebook user wrote in a post along with the quote.

Another version of the claim, posted on Feb. 15 with hundreds of shares reads, "This winter storm brought to you by Nancy Pelosi who said 'it would be a cold day in hell before Trump was acquitted again.'"

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook users for comment.

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No evidence of quote

There is no evidence that Pelosi ever said this and a search of keywords from the quote on her official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages results in no matches.

The quote also does not appear on Politiwoops, an archive maintained by ProPublica that tracks deleted tweets from politicians.

Drew Hammill, deputy chief of staff and spokesman for Pelosi, confirmed to USA TODAY in an email that the quote is fabricated.

Claims that Pelosi said she would resign if Trump was acquitted in his impeachment trial have also been previously debunked by USA TODAY.

Shortly after the Senate voted to acquit Trump in a 57-43 vote on Feb. 13 Pelosi said, "What we saw in that Senate today was a cowardly group of Republicans who apparently have no options because they were afraid to defend their job."

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Our rating: False

The claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said "it will be a cold day in hell before Trump gets acquitted again' is FALSE, based on our research. There is no evidence of this quote on any of Pelosi's social media pages and there are no news reports about it. A spokesman for Pelosi also confirmed that the quote is fabricated.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Fake Nancy Pelosi quote on Trump impeachment trial acquittal