House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be the leader of the Democratic Party, but one could argue she’s no longer calling the shots.
Just a few hours after Pelosi said that impeaching President Donald Trump is “just not worth it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made it clear she has other ideas.
“I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that 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,” Pelosi told reporters.
While speaking to reporters Monday afternoon on Capitol Hill just hours after Pelosi’s comments, Ocasio-Cortez said impeachment won’t ever be completely off the table.
“She’s always demonstrated leadership that takes all kind of factors into account,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters, referring to Pelosi.
“Legally, I don’t think it’s something that can ever be 100 percent off the table, but if that’s how she feels right now I respect that,” the New York socialist added.
Ocasio-Cortez went on to argue that there are a number of “unsettled variables,” which she did not detail or explain, but suggested that Democrats were waiting for the final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller to determine where impeachment proceedings should go.
“Well, I think all of us have a responsibility to advocate our viewpoints, and so I wouldn’t say that the statements are designed to shut down conversations or to shut down the conversation over it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“You know, this is how the Speaker feels, but the whole point of our democracy is that if we disagree we have a responsibility to air out our arguments as to why and take it into consideration,” she added.
Ocasio-Cortez went on to say that she believes Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses, citing comments made by Sen. Lindsey Graham in the late 1990s during former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment process.
“Lindsey Graham said himself that you don’t have to commit a crime to be impeached when he was making the argument for Clinton, you just have to have kind of defiled the office in a way, which hello, so in every way imaginable,” Ocasio-Cortez charged.
She added: “So, I think according to the Lindsey Graham standard, that absolutely, does Trump meet that bar? He’s met it multiple times.”
Ocasio-Cortez has been on the “impeachment train” for quite some time.
In January, the 29-year-old lawmaker told CNN’s Manu Raju that impeachment is a “legitimate discussion to have.”
"It's a legitimate discussion to have." — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told me about impeachment.
"I'm not comfortable .. making that kind of leap," says Rep. DeFazio, saying wait for Mueller report first. pic.twitter.com/qDL6bnDaYR
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 4, 2019
In December, Ocasio-Cortez again voiced her support for removing Trump from office despite the fact that the president has not been charged or found guilty of a single crime.
While speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, the 29-year-old socialist was asked if it was premature to begin discussing impeachment.
“Not to me,” she said, arguing that there’s no need to wait any longer because “we have far surpassed” the “standard” that the Republican Party used to impeach President Clinton.
In early November, Ocasio-Cortez told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos on his show “Real America” that it’s a “no-brainer” that Trump should be impeached.
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