House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff said today to CNN’s Jake Tapper that if the reporting on President Donald Trump‘s call with the president of Ukraine is accurate, then impeachment may be the only remedy.

Schiff said if there was nothing wrong with the call, the president could just release the transcript or the whistleblower complaint, saying he isn’t because he’s “afraid” for the public to see.

“This would be, I think, the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office certainly during this presidency, which says a lot, but perhaps during just about any presidency,” he added.

Tapper directly asked, “If the president did in that phone call push the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe Biden eight times as the Wall Street Journal reported, is it an impeachable offense, in your view?”

Schiff said he’s been “very reluctant” to pursue impeachment because it would be “a remedy of last resort,” but this is different for him:

“If the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit, that is providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is co-equal to the evil that that conduct represents.”

Tapper asked him about the criticism from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted, “At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior – it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it.”

At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior – it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 22, 2019

Schiff said that part of the issue is making a case to the public that “impeachment is the right thing to do,” adding that he’s spoken to colleagues in the past week and they agree “we may very well have crossed the Rubicon here.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

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