Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said that a controversial leaked recording of a phone call between the president and a Georgia official was cause for a second impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Ocasio-Cortez made the comments to reporters Sunday as the first day of the new session of Congress began.
“I absolutely think it’s an impeachable offense and if it was up to me, there would be articles on the floor quite quickly but he, I mean he is trying to — he is attacking our very election,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “He’s attacking our very election.”
The phone call between the president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was obtained and published by the Washington Post on Sunday. In the call, the president asks Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes to overturn the election results.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes,” the president is heard saying on the recording, “which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
Raffensperger said he did not record the conversation and does not know who recorded it, but he admitted that he was glad it was published because the president was making false claims about their conversation.
“You can’t keep on taking shots from people and people keep putting out stuff that’s not true,” Raffensperger said to NBC News. “And we’re gonna respond, we’re going to respond forcefully sometimes with the facts. If people can’t handle the facts, I’m sorry, but those are the facts.”
Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she had not listened to the entire hourlong recording of the phone call, but that she believed it was enough to impeach the president for a second time.
On Monday, Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu of California and Kathleen Rice of New York called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate the leaked call for possible criminal charges.
“As members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” Lieu and Rice said in a letter to Wray. “We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the president.”
No president has been impeached more than once.
Here’s the entire leaked phone call:
Full Phone Call: Trump Pressures Georgia Secretary of State To Recount Election Votes | NBC News
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