AOC: Democrats' refusal to impeach Trump is a 'national scandal'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) took aim at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday, calling the Democratic Party’s reluctance to impeach President Donald Trump a “national scandal.”

“At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior ― it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted late Saturday.

The freshman lawmaker’s tweet follows reports that a U.S. intelligence official filed a whistleblower complaint last month allegedly involving Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a front-runner in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race.

House Democrats are looking into whether Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure the foreign government to dig up dirt on Biden’s younger son, Hunter, who previously sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, attacking reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post about the matter as “fake news.”

Despite the explosive allegations against Trump and the majority of House Democrats publicly supporting the start of an impeachment inquiry, Pelosi has refused to move forward with the process, claiming it would only further divide the country.

She also reportedly told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) last week that she doesn’t believe impeachment would pass a vote on the House floor.

A representative for Pelosi did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Ocasio-Cortez and several other progressive House Democrats have repeatedly urged Pelosi for more than a year to pursue impeachment of the president, citing conflicts of interest between Trump’s presidency and his business empire.

More Democrats began calling for an impeachment inquiry following Robert Mueller’s Russia report, which outlined several instances of potential obstruction of justice committed by Trump.

Nearly all of the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have said they would support the House opening an inquiry.

“After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment,” Warren tweeted Friday. “By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump’s latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president.”

Biden, who has stated in the past that he agrees with Pelosi’s stance on impeachment, told CBS News on Friday that Trump “could be impeached” depending on the results of the House’s probe into the whistleblower complaint.

“I’m not making that judgment now,” he said. “The House should investigate.”

• This article originally appeared on HuffPost.