US Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat of Michigan, said she believed US President Trump crossed an ethical line on “day one” of his administration. RNA - In a Friday interview with Yahoo News’s “Skullduggery” podcast, she said Trump committed an impeachable offense by not divesting himself from his sprawling real estate empire before entering public office.
“So many people are focused on what happened before he took the oath of office,” she said. “What I am more concerned [about], and what the American people and American public are concerned about is: After he took the oath of office, what has he done?”
She added: “We have a corporation running our government right now.” Tlaib touted 10 million signatures on a petition calling for impeachment, which she received Thursday from advocacy groups, including MoveOn and Need to Impeach.
Tlaib made headlines shorty before she was inaugurated by telling a crowd that Congress would “impeach the motherf***er.” (Reflecting on her stance to “Skullduggery,” she said: “I think I was very clear about that.”)
But the Democratic leadership has steadily resisted such calls. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said earlier this week that Trump “is goading us to impeach him” to rally his base ahead of the 2020 elections.
“This is something she’s told me personally: ‘Represent your district,’” Tlaib said of Pelosi. “So I’m representing my district here. And I’m doing it in a way that’s not disrespectful to her, or trying to undermine what I think she truly believes.”
Tlaib further argued that the Trump administration’s conflicts of interest make it difficult for Congress to do its job on a host of other issues. She repeatedly pointed to the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., which has become a hot spot for foreign governments and people with business before the government.
“Even the people that voted for him are now feeling the pain of the fact that we now have a crooked CEO in the Oval Office that thinks he’s running a business and not a government,” she said.
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