Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) announced Monday that she will soon file impeachment articles against at least one justice on the Supreme Court in the wake of their decision to grant partial immunity to former President Trump as he faces felony charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent liberal on the House Oversight Committee, said the ruling belies a central premise of America’s constitutional design — namely, that no one is above the law — and threatens to put the country on a path to tyranny.
“Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture,” she wrote on the social platform X. “I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.”
She did not specify which, or how many, of the justices she would target. Her office did not immediately respond to questions seeking clarification on Monday.
The criticisms echo those coming from other Democrats and legal scholars following the Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump cannot be prosecuted for “official” actions he undertook as commander in chief. The decision arrived as Trump faces four felony charges related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Biden, and his role in the rampage at the Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the building in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
“The Framers of the Constitution envisioned a democracy governed by the rule of law and the consent of the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said. “They did not intend for our nation to be ruled by a king or monarch who could act with absolute impunity.”
Trump’s GOP allies, who have accused Biden of “weaponizing” the Justice Department to damage a political opponent, had a decidedly different view. They quickly hailed the ruling as a guardrail protecting presidents from retaliatory political attacks.
“The President of the United States must have immunity, like Members of Congress and federal judges, which is necessary for any presidency to function properly,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), chair of the GOP conference, said in a statement.
The Supreme Court did not define what constitutes an “official” action, leaving that distinction to the discretion of a lower court. The decision all but ensures that the outcome of the case will not be known before voters go to the polls in November to decide the next president — a delayed timeline that prompted howls from Democrats and other Trump critics, who accuse him of orchestrating the violence of Jan. 6.
Fueling the Democrats’ attacks, two of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, both have connections to Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement. Critics say that, as a result, both should recuse themselves from any cases related to Jan. 6 — an entreaty they have refused.
Ocasio-Cortez, in announcing her impeachment articles, alluded to those connections, suggesting that justices who won’t police themselves demand that Congress step in to fill the void.
“The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,” she wrote Monday.
