As Mike Lee opposes Trump impeachment, suggests censoring Liberal MP

As Utah Senator Mike Lee opposes former President Donald Trump’s second indictment, he calls for censorship of Liberal Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for tweeting that Texas Senator Ted Cruz had tried to “kill me” by helping to annoy protesters who stormed the Capitol.

“It has come to my attention that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent a tweet a few hours ago in which she accused one of our colleagues – twice – of attempted murder,” wrote Lee, who is a close ally of Cruz for years. .

“I think that as a conference we should immediately and publicly invite him to withdraw his statement and apologize. If she refuses to do it – and maybe even if she does not – I think she should be reprimanded or censured by the House.

Conn Carroll, spokesperson for Lee, said the Federalist report was accurate, but declined to provide the letter or comment further. “Conference communications are generally confidential and we will respect this custom,” he said.

The dust arose after Ocasio-Cortez began a series of tweets in which she called for hearings to investigate the Robinhood stock trading app. It came as the company temporarily suspended trading in several stock purchases after online users began inflating GameStop stocks to undermine hedge funds.

Cruz said in a tweet that he was okay with the call – but the congresswoman then responded that she didn’t want his help.

“[Y]You almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you could drop this one. Happy to work with almost every other GOP that isn’t trying to get me killed, ”she tweeted.

It was an apparent reference to the riot and assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Cruz was among the leaders of an effort to overthrow the Electoral College results that day. While the House impeached Trump for inciting a riot, others also said members of Congress who tried to call off the election shared the blame.

Ocasio-Cortez also told Cruz in his tweet: “[I]If you want to help you can resign. “

Lee wasn’t the only one calling for action against the New York MP. Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas, sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying that if Ocasio-Cortez does not apologize, Republicans will find other ways to condemn his statement.

“If Representative Ocasio-Cortez does not immediately apologize, we will be forced to find alternative means to condemn this regrettable statement,” Roy wrote. “I sincerely hope that we all put an end to this heightened rhetoric and move forward to actually do the job the American people sent us here to do.”

While Lee condemns Ocasio-Cortez for saying that Cruz was trying to kill her with actions that could have pissed off the rioters, he opposed a Trump impeachment trial this week for instigating this riot. He did this during a vote on whether the impeachment of a president who has already left office is constitutional, and was among 45 Republicans who voted it was unconstitutional.

Lee released a brief explanatory statement after that vote.

“If the Senate adopted a broad interpretation of the impeachment power – an interpretation that allows federal officials to be sentenced on impeachment charges even after leaving office,” Lee said in a prepared statement, “the result would not only be problematic, but also contrary to the text, structure and historical understanding of the Constitution. “

Utah Senator Mitt Romney was one of five Republicans to vote that the procedure is constitutional. This indicates that Trump is unlikely to be convicted, as 17 Republicans are expected to join the 50 Senate Democrats to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority.