Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) acknowledged Sunday that it was “very difficult to see a path” to impeaching Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a GOP-led House, insisting that the party “refuses to hold itself accountable.”
The previously unreported trips were revealed by a ProPublica investigation released last week, leading Democrats to decry the revelations, saying the dynamic outlined blatant corruption in the court. But while some, including Ocasio-Cortez, have floated the idea of impeaching Thomas, she admitted doing so in a Republican-led House may prove futile.
“I admit it is very difficult to see a path in a Republican Party that refuses to hold itself accountable and, in fact, breaches the law itself,” Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “For all of their talk of a crime wave and Democrats, Republicans talking about crime waves across the country, the crime wave is within the Republican Party.”
But the New York congresswoman also maintained that the reported actions of Thomas were “a breaking of the law,” and continued to blast the legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself.
“I believe what we are seeing right now is a breaking of the law,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I know that there are calls for Chief Justice John Roberts to initiate an investigation. I do not think that this court any longer has the legitimacy.”
Thomas has defended his actions, saying he was advised he did not have to report such “hospitality” from his friends.
“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines,” Thomas said in a statement, his first public comments since the report.
But Ocasio-Cortez said it was the House’s “responsibility” to investigate Thomas’s actions, arguing it should come in the form of impeachment proceedings.
“It is the House’s responsibility to pursue that investigation in the form of impeachment,” she said.