False impeachment claim linked to Trump's Jan. 6 pardons | Fact check
The claim: AOC, Raskin filed impeachment articles over Trump's Jan. 6 pardons
A Jan. 24 Threads post (direct link, archive link) claims Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamie Raskin are taking action against President Donald Trump.
"AOC and Jaime Raskin (sic) have filed articles of impeachment against President Trump for pardoning the J6 prisoners," the post reads. "Maybe Articles of Impeachment should be filed against them as well!"
It was liked more than 1,000 times in four days. A Facebook post with the same claim was shared more than 300 times in four days.
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Our rating: False
Ocasio-Cortez and Raskin have not introduced articles of impeachment against Trump over his pardons for Jan. 6 defendants. The claim originated as satire.
Claim originally shared by parody account on X
On Jan. 20, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, where a mob of Trump's supporters disrupted the counting of electoral votes after the 2020 election. The attack led to the second impeachment of Trump, who was accused of "incitement of insurrection" and ultimately acquitted by the Senate. Raskin, of Maryland, led the impeachment effort, and Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, supported the proceedings.
But while Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez criticized Trump's Jan. 6 pardons, neither has introduced articles of impeachment against the president related to the move. There is no evidence of any such impeachment article being filed against the president, whose broad pardon power is established by the Constitution.
No such resolution has been filed in the House of Representatives. There are likewise no credible news reports about any impeachment articles being introduced against Trump. The press offices for Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez also have not announced any such filings by the legislators.
The claim started as satire. An X post with the same image of Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez as the one shared in the Threads post and nearly identical claim language was shared before the Threads post. The X account describes itself as a source for parody in its bio.
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The Threads post is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where posts created as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.
Paste BN has debunked an array of social media claims involving Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez, including false assertions that Raskin had said Congress wouldn't "be certifying the election" for Trump, that a video shows Ocasio-Cortez holding an event opposite of Trump's May 2024 Bronx rally and that she had $142,000 in student loans forgiven.
Paste BN reached out to the Threads user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources
- @its_The_Dr, Jan. 24, X post (archived)
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, accessed Jan. 27, Press
- Jamie Raskin, accessed Jan. 27, News
- Congress.gov, accessed Jan. 27, Search
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