Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a House Oversight hearing in August Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made the case for impeaching President Donald Trump on Sunday, after a group of Republican members of Congress sent a letter to President-elect Joe Biden urging him to stop Democrats from attempting to do so.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet announced whether she will schedule impeachment proceedings against Trump, after he incited a violent mob of supporters to storm the Capitol on Wednesday. With only days left in Trump’s term, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and six other Republican representatives wrote in a letter to Biden on Saturday that they believed impeachment was “as unnecessary as it is inflammatory,” and that Biden should intervene “in the spirit of healing and fidelity to our Constitution.”
Ocasio-Cortez pushed back against their argument on Sunday, and noted that impeaching Trump would bar him from ever running for president ever again. “When we talk about healing, the process of healing is separate and in fact requires accountability,” she said in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week.” “And so if we allow insurrection against the United States with impunity, with no accountability, we are inviting it to happen again.”
“We came close to half of the House nearly dying on Wednesday,” she said, referring to the fact that some members were not present in the chamber the day of the mob attack. “If a foreign head of state…came in and ordered an attack on the United States Congress, would we say that that should not be prosecuted? Would we say there should be absolutely no response to that? No.”
Democrats are exploring multiple avenues for removing Trump, including through impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Ocasio-Cortez added that Democrats are considering whether to invoke the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies elected officials, including lawmakers, who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. Watch the full interview below.
