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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Graeme Massie

AOC says Donald Trump should be impeached for Georgia votes phone call

Photograph: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she thinks Donald Trump should be impeached for his call to the Georgia secretary of state demanding he “find” votes to overturn his election loss.

The New York congresswoman said that the outgoing president should be “quickly” sanctioned for the shocking call to Brad Raffensperger.

"I absolutely think it's an impeachable offence, 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. He's attacking our very election," said Ms Ocasio-Cortez as the new session of Congress opened.

Throughout the Saturday call Mr Trump urged the Republican election boss to help him “find” the votes he needed to reverse his defeat in the state to Joe Biden.

But Mr Raffensperger and his officials repeatedly told Mr Trump that his opponent’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

And they repeatedly told Mr Trump that his claims of winning Georgia were based on a string of false and debunked conspiracy theories.

Mr Trump even told Mr Raffensperger that he was taking “a big risk” in nor pursuing his false claims.

"The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” said Mr Trump.

“And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

House Democrats voted in 2019 to impeach Mr Trump for abuse of power an obstruction of Congress.

They accused him of pressuring the government of Ukraine to open an investigation into president-elect Joe Biden.

But the Republican controlled Senate voted to acquit him when the proceedings came to them in February 2020.

California congressman Adam Schiff, who lead the House impeachment, was also asked if Mr Trump should be impeached for a second time.

"I would need to think about that, but, you know, if it's potentially criminal, then it's potentially impeachable, and even in the absence of a crime, it's potentially impeachable,” he said.

Georgia representative Hank Johnson said he plans to introduce a resolution to formally censure Mr Trump over the call and urged the president to resign over it.

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