Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview that there are plenty of reasons to still seek impeachment against President Trump, but when pressed on what some of them would be, she struggled to name three.
Discussing an impeachment resolution introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib last month, Ocasio-Cortez said she’d likely sign on, joining the only other Democratic member to support it, Rep. Al Green of Texas.
“I think you could reach in a bag and pull so many things out that are impeachable of this president. I support impeaching this president,” Ocasio-Cortez told Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast on Sunday.
She began discussing the issue when she was asked about comments Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., made in a CNN interview on Sunday morning. Nadler, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Trump showed “contempt” for the law when he reportedly promised the former head of Customs and Border Protection a pardon if he faced jail for denying immigrants seeking asylum entry into the United States. In a tweet on Saturday, Trump denied offering the pardon.
“I think this is a very grave problem, but there’s so many aspects to this presidency that have ... posed a grave problem,” Ocasio-Cortez told Yahoo News when asked if she agreed with Nadler’s view and what she thought should be done about it. (Yahoo)
Ocasio-Cortez was then asked what her top three reasons for impeaching the president are.
“No. 1 is emoluments,” she responded. “I think it’s always been emoluments.”
She did not name Russia, saying that if something came from the Mueller report, that would have been the top reason. “I feel like it’s a little risky to put the entire grounds of impeachment … to put all yours eggs in that basket,” she said, noting that emoluments “includes any kind of financial misconduct.”
Her second reason was “tax fraud,” pointing to Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen’s assertion to lawmakers that the president inflated his wealth “when it served his purposes” but deflated assets to reduce his real estate taxes.
Ocasio-Cortez struggled on a third reason, however, and later said it was hard to narrow down the number of impeachable offenses.
“There’s just so much. ... I can’t even,” she said. “There’s just so much.”
When asked what the “top three” offenses would be if she were drafting articles of impeachment against Trump, @AOC said “Number 1 is emoluments.” https://t.co/5rQWJ24ElL via @isikoff, @dklaidman, skullduggerypod pic.twitter.com/R08p8kugIN
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) April 15, 2019
Last month House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cautioned members against pursuing impeachment because “it is so divisive to the country.”
“Unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it,” she told the Washington Post.