House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told her Democratic colleagues that President Trump "wants to be impeached" in order to be vindicated by the Senate, according to ABC News.

Pelosi made the suggestion during a Thursday morning meeting according to two Democratic aides, who said that Pelosi also called Trump's actions "villainous."

The aide said that Pelosi was implying that she will stick to her current plan to keep investigating the president and his administration without jumping to impeachment, but Pelosi didn’t explicitly say that in her remarks. -ABC News

Pelosi's comments come one day after she and President Trump traded barbs after a contentious White House meeting in which Trump effectively said that Democrats' efforts to continue investigating him were getting in the way of bipartisan negotiations over infrastructure spending.

Pelosi claimed that Trump had engaged in a "cover-up" in regards to the administration's efforts to prevent former White House Counsel Don McGahn from testifying Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

JUST IN: Speaker Pelosi says "we believe the president of the United States is engaged in a cover up" by stonewalling testimony for ongoing congressional investigations. pic.twitter.com/7ILMb95vZM — NBC News (@NBCNews) May 22, 2019

Trump responded, an impromptu speech from the Rose Garden where he said: "I don't do cover-ups," adding "I walked into the room and I told Sen. Schumer, Speaker Pelosi: I want to do infrastructure, I want to do it more than you want to do it... But you know what, you can't do it under these circumstances."

Trump says he told Pelosi and Schumer that he won't work on an infrastructure deal until they stop investigating him pic.twitter.com/pqoaqPKxXM — Axios (@axios) May 22, 2019

McGahn skipped out on a Wednesday hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee after the Justice Department granted him immunity from complying with a Subpoena issued by the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

As Democrats weigh their options, Trump is almost taunting them by testing the bounds of executive power in ways few other administrations have. The White House contends that even former employees like McGahn do not have to abide by subpoenas from Congress. ... Trump’s former White House counsel is the most-cited witness in Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation report, recounting the president’s attempts to interfere with the probe. And that makes his silence all the more infuriating for Democrats. -AP

Meanwhile, 32 members of the House Democratic caucus have so far supported measures to open an impeachment inquiry against Trump, many of whom voiced support just this week.