President Donald Trump holds up a newspaper with the headline that reads “ACQUITTED” at the 68th annual National Prayer Breakfast, at the Washington Hilton, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

In his first public remarks after his impeachment acquittal, US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had been “put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people.” Speaking at a televised prayer breakfast, Trump was quoted as saying by AFP: “They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing very badly hurt our nation.”

He also lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitt Romney, the sole Republican to vote to convict him in his impeachment trial, accusing them of hypocritically cloaking themselves in their faith. “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that that’s not so.”

Trump would be giving a statement at the White House later. The US President said he would discuss his determination that what happened during his impeachment cannot be allowed to “go on.”

The US President’s comments was a clear sign that the post-impeachment Trump is emboldened like never before as he barrels ahead in his reelection fight with a united Republican Party behind him.

Read: Mitt Romney: A lone senator’s act of defiance against a party he had personified

Republican senators voted largely to acquit Trump on Wednesday, relying on a multitude of rationales for keeping him in office: He’s guilty, but his conduct wasn’t impeachable; his July telephone conversation with Ukraine’s president was a “perfect call”; there’s an election in 10 months and it’s up to voters to determine his fate.

And then the Democrats gave some more good news to Donald Trump. The Iowa caucuses, the nation’s first presidential nominating contest, was thrown into disarray by a tabulating mishap. That deprived any candidate of a clear victory and allowed Trump to paint the Democrats as incompetent and corrupt.