AOC Makes Absurd Argument for Impeaching SCOTUS Justices

It was inevitable that the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would prompt tremendous backlash from liberals.

But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken things a step further than most of her allies, even floating the idea that several conservative Supreme Court justices should be impeached and removed from their positions.

For context, AOC is one of the many liberals
falsely
claiming that Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett “lied under oath” during their confirmation hearings. These critics are (
incorrectly
) suggesting that the justices promised not to overturn Roe v. Wade in their sworn Senate testimony. AOC also apparently thinks they should be impeached for this supposed lie because lying under oath is a crime.

“I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense … and I believe that this is something that should be very seriously considered,” the congresswoman said on MSNBC’s Meet the Press. “We have a responsibility to protect our democracy,” she
added
on Twitter. “That includes holding those in power who violate the law accountable. Without it, rule of law can slip through our hands like sand through loose fingers.”

Even for AOC, this argument is outrageous and absurd.

First things first. The justices didn’t lie under oath. Nothing they said comes anywhere close to perjury. It doesn’t take a lawyer or a genius to see this, just a semiliterate human with basic access to Google. We have the receipts on what the justices specifically said during their hearings. Here’s what Gorsuch
actually said
under oath, according to the Wall Street Journal:

“Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. … So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other. If I were to start telling you which are my favorite precedents or which are my least favorite precedents, or if I viewed precedent in that fashion, I would be tipping my hand and suggesting to litigants that I have already made up my mind about their cases.”

Here’s what Kavanaugh said, according to the Wall Street Journal:

“Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed many times. It was reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. … So that precedent on precedent is quite important as you think about stare decisis in this context.”

Other, liberal-leaning sources such as NPR also
recount
the justices’ testimony and do not present any statements in which they made any promises not to overturn Roe.

Nowhere in the above does either justice say they will not overturn Roe v. Wade. They simply acknowledge that it was a precedent, a statement of fact, and then say that they will give it the accompanying respect that precedents deserve. But no justice defers completely to precedent. Every single member of the current Supreme Court, including the liberal justices, has voted to overturn precedents in the past.

Were Gorsuch and Kavanaugh intentionally vague? Did they give generic nonanswers that obscured their views on Roe v. Wade and other controversial precedents? Yeah, sure. But that’s what all Supreme Court nominees do these days, thanks to a
confirmation tactic
first started by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, albeit to a lesser extent.

Amy Coney Barrett, for her part,
specifically said
during her confirmation hearing that Roe v. Wade was not a “superprecedent” considered beyond the pale of being overturned. So, no, AOC, the justices did not lie under oath. Not even close. As a result, AOC’s argument for impeaching them is empty and absurd.

Democrats, disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling all you want. Make your case about abortion to the public, now that abortion policies will be decided at the state level. But don’t stoop to false history and character assassination to do it.

Brad Polumbo (
@Brad_Polumbo
) is a co-founder of
Based-Politics.com
, a co-host of the BasedPolitics
podcast
, and a Washington Examiner contributor.

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