In a rare attack on her own party, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has chastised the Democratic Party’s leadership for their unwillingness to start impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
The New York congresswoman tweeted on Sunday: “At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior - it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it.”
At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior - it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 22, 2019
“It is one thing for a sitting president to break the law,” she wrote in a follow-up tweet. “It’s another to let him. The integrity of our democracy isn’t threatened when a president breaks the law. It‘s threatened when we do nothing about it. The GOP’s silence & refusal to act shouldn’t be a surprise. Ours is.”
A number of people have disagreed with Ocasio-Cortez, suggesting that she might have been inflating the problem.
IMO, this is “false equivalence” of its own sort.
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) September 22, 2019
What Trump is doing remains objectively the biggest threat, scandal, and problem.
Second-ranking: the silent acquiescence of the GOP Senate.
Then: it’s time for House to act.
Democracy is actually under threat when the president breaks the law. And by saying Democrats are *worse* than Republicans, you may be exacerbating the problem
— Mangy Jay (@magi_jay) September 22, 2019
If you want impeachment, advocate for the votes. Raise money for vulnerable moderates. Encourage people to vote him out
To protect our Democracy we need to remove Tlaib, Omar, Ayanna and AOC from office and the US!
— Dearieme66 (@CynthiaRentch) September 15, 2019
Others sided with the congresswoman and went even further; broaching the idea of impeaching House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her failure to embrace impeachment.
If the only reason to not impeach Trump is GOP senate votes, then we might as well declare that any president who has the senate can commit any crime they want. Either laws exist or they don't. If enforcing laws becomes a matter of political expediency, laws aren't worth a thing.
— Tuxedo Mask (@TheLoveBel0w) September 22, 2019
Correct! Trump being a criminal isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's WHY conservatives picked him. They wanted a ruthless authoritarian. Democrats ran on being a check on the president and that's why voters rewarded them with the House. So far that has been false advertising.
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) September 22, 2019
If this sitting Congress doesn't file articles of impeachment against this treasonous, murderous, unscrupulous criminal, then a horrifying precedent will be forever established. Far into the future our lawmakers can look back and say that if 45 wasn't impeachable, nobody is.
— Cat in the Hat ❄ (@NotMyPrecedent) September 22, 2019
Nancy Pelosi should resign.
— Joshua 4 Congress (@Joshua4Congress) September 22, 2019
Calls for impeachment grew stronger on Friday following media reports that an intelligence official had registered a complaint, accusing Trump of pressing Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, under the guise of anti-corruption crackdown, in a move that could harm Trump’s potential 2020 opponent.
Trump dismissed the potentially explosive report as “presidential harassment” and straight-up “fake.” “I have conversations with many leaders. It's always appropriate,” he said of the 25 July phone call with Zelenskiy that is at the centre of the controversy.
The House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, over the whistleblower complaint, which has apparently been concealed from Congress.
Dozens of Democrats have called for starting an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, who is feuding with the lawmakers as they try to investigate him.
But House Leader Nancy Pelosi has so far declined to endorse impeachment proceedings, saying that new laws are needed to specify when a sitting president should be indicted for wrongdoing. A Republican-controlled Senate is very, very unlikely to support the idea of impeaching Trump, and some Democrats fear that a legal battle would likely damage their chances in 2020.
