Ocasio-Cortez: Impeachment Inquiry Puts Democrat Party ‘in a New Direction’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) answers questions from reporters while entering a Hou
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said the Democrat-led House’s impeachment inquiry puts the Democrat Party “in a new direction.”

Her remarks come after months of infighting between far-left members of the “Squad” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has tried to dial back the remarks and efforts from the ultra-progressive wing of her caucus.

According to Axios, Ocasio-Cortez welcomed the official inquiry, proclaiming that the effort puts the party “in a new direction.”

“This puts the party in a new direction… The party is unified. The power behind that, and the weight behind that adds an urgency and an expeditiousness to the investigations that I don’t believe we would’ve seen,” Ocasio-Cortez said:

The freshman lawmaker’s declaration follows months of tension over the general direction of the Democrat Party, which boiled over after Pelosi accepted a bipartisan emergency funding package over the “Squad’s” version over the summer. Emotions ran even higher after the speaker dismissed the far-left “Squad” members in a July 6 interview with the New York Times.

“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

Ocasio-Cortez openly aired out the Democrat Party’s dirty laundry on Twitter.

They eventually made amends, meeting at the end of July to clear the air. Pelosi told a reporter following the meeting that the two did not have “that many differences.”

However, the ongoing battle for the heart of the party has not stopped. The impeachment effort has been at the center of the “Squad’s” agenda. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said on her first day in office that they were going to “impeach the motherfucker.”

Ocasio-Cortez called for impeachment prior to taking office, appearing on the Real America with Jorge Ramos show in November 2018, and calling impeachment a “no-brainer.”

“I mean, yeah. To me, it’s a no-brainer,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Well, I believe that he has violated the law.”

“Violated potentially many laws, whether it’s the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution because he keeps his businesses open that foreign actors kind of participate in financial transactions with,” she continued.

“Whether it’s what we are seeing with potentially illegal buyouts of campaign, you know, FEC violations of women that he is trying to silence,” she added, mentioning the bar “Republicans held for impeaching Bill Clinton.”

“But overall, you look at the bar that the Republicans held for impeaching Bill Clinton and somehow impeaching Donald Trump is supposed to be beyond the pale? It seems ridiculous to me,” she added.

In September, Ocasio-Cortez dared Senate Republicans to go on the record and “knowingly vote against impeachment of this president knowing his corruption” so they can “have that stain on their careers the rest of their lives”:

She took another veiled shot at Democrats last week, tweeting, “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”:

Pelosi demonstrated consistent efforts to stall the calls from her far-left colleagues, urging them in a caucus-wide call last month to follow the facts and warning them that the public “isn’t there” yet on impeachment.

As Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak noted:

But Pelosi is no longer waiting for the facts. She will make her stand based on the supposed principle that Congress is entitled to information from a reported whistleblower complaint that the administration has withheld thus far.

Yet Pelosi has other avenues, such as the courts, to pursue that information. She has been forced to change her view on impeachment because she no longer controls her caucus.

“AOC and the Squad have won; they hold real power,” he added.

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