AOC: Impeachment ‘About Preventing a Potentially Disastrous Outcome from Occurring Next Year’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said today’s public hearing in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump was ”not just about something that has occurred.”

She said it was instead “about preventing a potentially disastrous outcome from occurring next year.”

Ocasio-Cortez said, “The whole point of the public hearings is to present the facts to the public and let the general public see the facts for themselves and understand why we have chosen to move forward with the impeachment inquiry. What we heard today was astounding and devastating news for the president and anyone in the administration, really partaking. Frankly, this is devastating for the country. Our national security has been compromised, our elections potentially compromised. I think right now what Republicans have to do is decide what their role is going to be in the scope of history. We will look back at this time and really truly examine the moral decisions each member of Congress decided to make.”

Trump Disputes His Energy Secretary’s Assessment of Gas Prices: ‘He’s Wrong on That’

Nancy Mace Calls for ‘Immediate’ Expulsion of Fellow House Republican: ‘The Worst Kind of Pond Scum’

Repeat offender released early from jail now charged with capital murder of pregnant woman

Trump and Johnson to hold Virginia tele-rally against Spanberger’s gerrymander

Who is Joseph diGenova Reagan-era prosecutor tapped to lead ‘grand conspiracy’ investigation

Mob of teens chases college student into campus dorm, unleashes violent attack as police hunt suspects

Eight children dead in Louisiana domestic violence killing spree: What to know

Texas AG Paxton sues Dem fundraising platform ActBlue, alleging ‘fraudulent and foreign donations’

Bernie-backed Dem’s pro-gun Clint Eastwood post, Kaepernick critique spurs apology in battleground race

Watch Patel on Bartiromo: ‘I Can Announce’ Arrests Are Coming in Stolen 2020 Election Case – ‘Stay Tuned This Week’

Trump Reveals JD Vance and His Negotiating Team ‘Heading Over’ for Second Round of Iran Talks

WATCH: Houston faces $110M hit as Texas gov lays down law on ‘sanctuary’ policies

Left-wing activists heckle pro-Israel Democrat Haley Stevens at Michigan convention

Kash Patel files $250 million defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic over drinking allegations

Hawaii tourist charged with attempted murder, accused of stabbing veteran boat captain on snorkel tour

She continued, “This call with Ambassador Sondland and President Trump is a personal call that our witnesses testified an aide was overhearing where Trump was personally invested in these investigations and add a layer of proximity. One of the ways the president could have potentially tried to get out of this situation is put several degrees of separation between him and some of this illicit activity. What we heard today was he himself was making and partaking in some of these phone calls, not just Guiliani and not just anyone else in the administration, but him. That really adds a much more disturbing degree of the involvement that he had in using the powers of government to create politically motivated investigations.”

She added, “I’d like to remind everyone, one of the initial people who brought this conversation of quid pro quo into this conversation was the president. It was when these allegations first came out about Ukraine, he started tweeting and frankly raising the bar saying, ‘No quid pro quo, no quid pro quo.’ It wasn’t Democrats that set that bar, because you don’t need quid pro quo. He met it, all of that aside, we’re focused on him using the power of the United States government to engage in extortion of a foreign government in order to intervene in our elections. I think that’s our message, the fact he undermined national security, that he is trying to undermine an election, he is engaged in flagrant abuse of power should be a concern to all Americans who believe in rule of law in the United States of America.”