AOC Called Out Her Fellow Democrats On Twitter To Impeach Trump
Just hours after presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren called Congress "complicit" for not beginning impeachment proceedings against President Trump, another Democratic lawmaker is airing her thoughts on the matter. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet about impeaching Trump criticizes her fellow Democrats for not taking action in the aftermath of the findings of the Mueller probe and with the current reported whistleblower complaint, and she doesn't hold back when talking about her party. Elite Daily reached out to the White House for comment on Ocasio-Cortez's statement but did not hear back at the time of publication.
It's been over a month since Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified in front of Congress about his investigation into the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible cases where justice was obstructed. While Nancy Pelosi released an official statement at the time where she emphasized that "in America, no one is above the law" and she outlined how President Trump would "be held accountable" for his actions, some of her Democratic peers aren't happy with the lack of initiative that the party has taken in the weeks since.
More recently, there was a reported whistleblower complaint that the public learned about on Sept. 18. The complaint was reportedly made after Trump had communications with a foreign leader that included a troubling "promise," according to The Washington Post. In a press conference on Sept. 20, Trump told the media that the reported complaint was "ridiculous" and his conversations with other foreign leaders are "always appropriate."
One day after Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against the president, Ocasio-Cortez shifted the focus to her own party in a tweet shared on Saturday, Sept. 21 as she urged her fellow lawmakers to hold the president accountable.
"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," the freshman lawmaker tweeted. Elite Daily reached out to the White House for comment on Ocasio-Cortez's statement but did not hear back at the time of publication.
Ocasio-Cortez's tweet echoes the sentiments in Warren's post on Sept. 20, which shifted the focal point away from Trump to focus on what her fellow lawmakers weren't doing. She wrote:
After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump's latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president.
Warren continued in her tweets, "In 1974, Democrats and Republicans united in support of impeachment not out of mutual contempt for Nixon but mutual respect for the rule of law. Congress refused to be complicit in future law-breaking by Nixon or other presidents. It’s time for this Congress to step up and act." As of publication, no official impeachment proceedings have been brought against the president from the Democratic party.
For her part, Pelosi has previously warned against impeachment due to its divisive nature and the fact that it's generally unpopular with the public, saying doing so is "just not worth it" in a March interview with The Washington Post.
"Trump is goading us to impeach him," she reiterated during a New York City event back in May. "That's what he's doing. Every single day, he's just like taunting, taunting, taunting because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country, but he doesn't really care. He just wants to solidify his base."
However, it appears that pressure has only increased in the month since Mueller gave his testimony before Congress. As of Aug. 2, more than 50% of House Democrats are in support of beginning impeachment proceedings against the president, per ABC News. Despite this, Pelosi appeared to suggest that Democrats will avoid impeachment, instead focusing on gaining access to Trump's tax returns, bank account documents, and other statements. Only time will tell whether Pelosi bends to pressure from her fellow Democratic lawmakers to take more extreme measures against the president, but it looks like impeachment is off the table for the time being.
