'Make the time, or quit': Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demands lawmakers read the bombshell 9-page whistleblower report after some said they didn't look at it yet
- Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York derided US senators for not having read the declassified version of the whistleblower complaint by Thursday afternoon.
- Several senators cited numerous reasons for not reading the nearly nine-page complaint, which was released earlier in the morning.
- "There is almost no excuse for a member of Congress to have not read the whistleblower report by now," Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. "It's a few pages. This is literally our jobs. If you don't have the commitment to be here and do the work, cut your fancy fundraisers & make the time, or quit."
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York derided US senators for not having read the declassified version of the whistleblower complaint by Thursday afternoon.
Several US senators cited numerous reasons for not reading the nearly nine-page report that an unnamed whistleblower working in the intelligence community filed in response to a phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.
Republican Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and John Hoeven North Dakota said they were in a congressional meeting and did not get a chance to read the complaint by Thursday afternoon, according to CNN.
Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio reportedly said he could not comment on the matter because he was "running around" all day and did not read the report.
One Republican senator on the intelligence committee who read the complaint said he found "real troubling things."
"Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there's no 'there' there when there's obviously lots that's very troubling there," Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said to reporters on Wednesday.
In response to their answers, Ocasio-Cortez lambasted the lawmakers for not having read the complaint and said it was their sworn duty "to be here and do the work."
"There is almost no excuse for a member of Congress to have not read the whistleblower report by now," Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. "It's a few pages. This is literally our jobs. If you don't have the commitment to be here and do the work, cut your fancy fundraisers & make the time, or quit."
House and Senate lawmakers from the intelligence committees had the opportunity to read the full complaint in a secured facility starting on Wednesday. The next morning, acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire was interviewed by House lawmakers on the intelligence committee about the complaint in a public hearing.
The report, portions of which were redacted, claims that White House officials were "deeply disturbed" by Trump's July phone call with President Zelensky. The whistleblower added that although he was not a "direct witness" to the events, some of the White House officials he communicated with believed Trump may have been abusing "his office for personal gain" by asking the Ukrainian president to investigate one of his "main domestic political rivals," namely former Vice President and 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden.