US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, questions Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, as he testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on February 27, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

A Democratic congresswoman who sparked outrage earlier this year with a profanity-laced vow to impeach President Donald Trump said Wednesday she intends to file the necessary paperwork soon. "Later on this month, I will be joining folks and advocates across the country to file the impeachment resolution to start the impeachment proceedings," Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan said at a news conference. Tlaib has continued to defend her call to impeach Trump despite backlash from seniors members of her party, who have taken a more cautious approach.

"This is an emergency for many of us," Tlaib said. "We cannot allow the pay-to-play to continue. We cannot allow the direct violation of the Emoluments Clause. Anybody else would already be in impeachment proceedings." The freshman congresswoman went viral on her first day in Congress after she said she would "impeach the motherf-----," a comment that drew criticism from senior members of her caucus including Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, who chairs the committee that would oversee impeachment proceedings. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In January, responding to Tlaib's earlier comments, Trump told reporters that "you can't impeach somebody that's doing a great job." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who shepherded the party through the November midterms with a strategy that largely avoided direct mentions of the president, has also been wary of pushing ahead with impeachment talk. In an interview with Rolling Stone published last month, Pelosi said impeachment could be "disruptive." "It's an opportunity cost in terms of time and resources," Pelosi said. "You don't want to go down that path unless it is unavoidable." Tlaib said Wednesday she wanted to move forward with a policy agenda focused on economic and racial justice, "but guess what, there is a wall there, and a constitutional crisis."