Plaskett insists Trump will 'never be elected again' despite impeachment acquittal

Despite the U.S. Senate voting to acquit former President Donald Trump on one article of impeachment, Democratic Rep. Stacey Plaskett on Tuesday called the 57 votes for conviction "the most bipartisan" impeachment tally against a president and predicted the trial will "ensure that President Trump would never be elected again to any public office should he run."

"I think what we have shown to the world is that the American process works," Plaskett told the hosts of ABC's "The View. "What our founding fathers created, it continues to work."

Plaskett, one of nine Democrats tasked with prosecuting the House's impeachment case against Trump, said her goal during the trial wasn't only to persuade all 50 Democrats and 17 Republicans -- the bare minimum of 67 votes needed for conviction.

"You don't go into a battle thinking that you're going to lose and we really were purposeful, all of the impeachment managers, in speaking to all 100 senators. We weren’t just trying to get the Democrats and 17 Republicans, we wanted to win everyone," Plaskett, a delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, said. "And so I think that's what you saw in not just the passion but the meticulous nature, the surgical precision that we tried to utilize in making the case through overwhelming evidence, through demonstrative evidence, throughout that time period."

Lauded for her forceful presentation of video evidence during the Trump impeachment trial, Plaskett asserted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell "made a calculation" bowing to his own political interests rather than vote to convict Trump.

"I think he made a calculation that he could not get a majority of his own caucus of Republican senators to come over and convict, and therefore he couldn't do it because he wouldn't be able to maintain his position as minority leader if he did that," she said. "And so he made the calculation not to convict in that instance, which then signaled to others not to do it as well."

Plaskett was born in Brooklyn and grew up at a housing community on Saint Croix. She later served as a congressional staffer during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. A mother of five, Plaskett sheltered in her office during the siege on the Capitol.

The first territory delegate to participate in a Senate trial, Plaskett was a law student of lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin, who was a constitutional law professor at American University before serving in Congress.

Even though she could not cast a vote during the House impeachment trial because she is a non-voting delegate representing a U.S. territory, Plaskett emphasized that she came to Congress to represent the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"When people say I'm a breakout star that always make me feel a little uncomfortable because my purpose in coming to Washington was to represent the people of the Virgin Islands and fight for those things that are important to them, not to necessarily to be a star but I'm trying to use the platform to elevate the issues of the territories," Plaskett said.

"So my job in using this platform is to show that even without a vote, we can have a voice and if you gave us a vote, how much more we could do for this country," she added.