Meet Delegate Stacey Plaskett, The Black Woman Impeachment Manager Who Led With Receipts

She didn’t come to play around!

Meet Delegate Stacey Plaskett, the Black woman impeachment manager who lead the charge with receipts. 

You may have never heard the name Stacey Plaskett, but after last week, you won’t forget it. According to The New York Times, Plaskett is a Brooklyn native whose parents are from The Virgin Islands. She obtained a degree in history and diplomacy from Georgetown University before graduating from American University’s Washington College of Law. She has worked as an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, as House ethics committee counsel, and as a political appointee in the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush. 

Plaskett eventually moved to the Virgin Islands, working in the private sector before being elected to serve as a Delegate in Congress in 2014. She is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and has pushed to prioritize economic development in the Caribbean. As a member of Congress representing a U.S. territory, Plaskett has limited capabilities and cannot cast votes on the House floor, including voting to impeach 45. However, the U.S. Virgin Islands representative felt it was essential to give her constituents a voice and, in 2019, petitioned Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as an impeachment manager in the Senate trial. She wrote, “The party says that Black women are the base and our primary support, and there are five Black women in the House who are attorneys and only two of us are former prosecutors.”

While Pelosi didn’t include Plaskett during the first impeachment hearing, she made sure to include her the second time around. Last week, Plaskett made her case in front of the Senate, arguing that 45 was fully aware of what would happen during the Capitol’s insurrection and providing a boatload of receipts to back her claim, Blavity reports. 

“The violence — it was foreseeable. The violence that occurred on Jan. 6, like the attack itself, did not just appear. You’ll see that Donald Trump knew the people he was inciting. He saw the violence that they were capable of, and he had a pattern and practice of praising and encouraging that violence, never, ever condemning it. You’ll see that this violent attack was not planned in secret. The insurgents believed that they were doing the duty of their president. They were following his orders, and so they publicized it openly, loudly, proudly — the exact blueprints of how the attack would be made,” Plaskett said during her speech. 

She then submitted proof of dozens of social media posts, news stories, and FBI court filings citing how Trump and his team were not only fully aware of the plans for the Jan. 6 attack but how they were directly responsible and even worked in concert with attackers to help plan the attack. She also noted the permit for the rally that Trump altered to allow them to march to the Capitol Building. 

“Donald Trump, over many months, cultivated violence, praised it, and then when he saw the violence his supporters were capable of, he channeled it to his big, wild, historic event. He organized Jan. 6, with the same people that had just organized a rally resulting in substantial violence and made absolutely sure this time these violent rally-goers wouldn’t just remain in place. He made sure that those violent people would literally march right here to our steps from the ellipse to the Capitol to stop the steal. His cavalry. This was deliberate,” Plaskett added.

Utilizing photos of messages from 45’s supporters on social media, as well as his connection to domestic terrorist groups like The Proud Boys and the Oath Keeper militia, two organized groups who participated in the insurrection, Plaskett was able to make a clear and damaging case against the former president. She credits her experience as a Black woman with her ability to serve as an impeachment manager and stand up for what is right.

“I’ve learned throughout my life that preparation, and truth, can carry you far and can allow you to speak truth to power. I’ve learned that as a young Black girl growing up in the projects in Brooklyn, a housing community on St. Croix, sent to the most unlikely of settings, and now as an adult woman, representing an island territory speaking to the U.S. Senate. And because of truth, I am confident today because truth and facts are overwhelming,” Plaskett said. 

On Saturday, the Senate acquitted former president 45 of the impeachment charge brought by the House. They voted 57 to 43, 10 votes short of what they needed to find him not guilty of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection. Only seven Republicans broke with 45 and their party to vote “guilty.”

Thank you for your service, Delegate Stacey Plaskett. Because of you, we can.

Photo Courtesy of J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press Photo