AOC Says She’ll File Articles Of Impeachment Against Supreme Court
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said on Monday she’ll submit articles of impeachment against members of the U.S. Supreme Court when the House of Representatives is back in session.
“The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,” the left-wing lawmaker wrote on X, formerly called Twitter. “Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s post followed the court’s ruling Monday that shields former President Donald Trump from prosecution stemming from “official acts” as president, with major implications for his pending trial on election subversion.
Last year, Ocasio-Cortez wanted to impeach conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after it was revealed that GOP megadonor Harlan Crow had funded trips for Thomas. But she didn’t follow through on filing articles, explaining that an impeachment or investigation was unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled House.
A push to impeach conservative justices is just as unlikely to go anywhere in the House now. Even so, Democrats are eager to make a statement after a series of major rulings from the right-leaning court this session, including making it harder for the government to charge Jan. 6 rioters and striking down a ban on gun bump stocks.
Monday’s presidential immunity ruling makes the distinction between “official” and “unofficial” acts as president when it comes to which can be prosecuted, but remands the decision to a lower court to decide which acts qualify as what.
Ocasio-Cortez is so far the only Democrat to immediately endorse impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court justices, but other Democrats were equally outraged over the immunity ruling and the actions of the conservative-majority court since it struck down Roe v. Wade last year. Democrats have called on Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases after photos surfaced of flags associated with Jan. 6 and the “stop the steal” movement flown at the justice’s homes. Alito has said his wife, and not him, decided to fly the flags.
“My stomach turns with fear & anger that our democracy can be so endangered by an out-of-control Court. The members of Court’s conservative majority will now be rightly perceived by the American people as extreme & nakedly partisan hacks — politicians in robes,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote on X.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) blasted the court’s ruling as “another win” for Trump from an extreme majority.
“The far-right radicals on the Court have essentially made the President a monarch above the law, the Founding Fathers’ greatest fear,” Whitehouse said in a press release.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who led the first impeachment inquiry against Trump in 2019, told reporters in a call organized by the Biden-Harris campaign that the court has made “the deciding votes to give the president of the United States complete carte blanche to commit any crime that he or she wants to.”
Jen Bendery contributed reporting.
