[Updated reports confirm that AOC was not in the U.S. Capitol building during her "near death" experience. She claims to have been in her office, which is located in the Cannon Building. Rioters did not breach the Cannon Building.]
When a New York City executive security professional saw stories and the video about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) being allegedly terrorized at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by domestic terrorists and insurrectionists (aka patriotic, conservative Americans), he was skeptical:
"A number of questions arise with her statement she hid in the bathroom of her office: 1. Does she have an office in the Capitol?, 2. When did she come out? 3. There are cameras everywhere there, so let's go to the video tape!"
The official, a CEO of two executive protection firms, could not be identified because he has active accounts in the nation's capital which is no longer a "bipartisan environment," he noted.
So was AOC even in the Capitol when it was breached on Jan. 6 and if not, where was she and who precisely was posing an existential threat to her person?
After a flood of uncritical media accounts of AOC's traumatic experience during which she referenced past sexual abuse, GOP congresswoman Nancy Mace noted that her office is two doors down from Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s in the Cannon Office Building and that “insurrectionists never stormed our hallway.”
"@AOC made clear she didn’t know who was at her door. Breathless attempts by media to fan fictitious news flames are dangerous," Rep. Mace tweeted.
AOC fired back: "They are manipulating the fact that most people don’t know the layout the Capitol complex. We were all on the Capitol complex — the attack wasn’t just on the dome."
AOC fired back: "They are manipulating the fact that most people don’t know the layout the Capitol complex. We were all on the Capitol complex — the attack wasn’t just on the dome."
But as the security official noted Tuesday after the AOC video went viral:
Do all of the representatives in Congress have an office in the Capitol? No. All members of the U.S. House of Representatives do have offices on the South side of the Capitol complex, specifically one of the Cannon House Office Building, the Ford House Office Building, the Longworth House Office Building, or the Rayburn House Office Building. A small number of leaders also have offices in the U.S. Capitol Building itself. No doubt Pelosi has an office in the capitol but not AOC. Passages between the Capitol and all other buildings have security checkpoints, so I absolutely doubt anyone breached her office. I know they got into the Rotunda, but other buildings? I don't think so.
At the point, a reminder is in order. This was in Washington, D.C., where facts matter not and the narrative is everything.According to an emotionally-compelling Instagram video posted by Ocasio-Cortez, she was in her office when the U.S. Capitol building was stormed. She also claimed that rioters had entered her office, according to Newsweek. “I had a very close encounter, where I thought I was going to die.”
“And so I run back into my office,” she said during the video. “I slam my door. There’s another kind of like back area to my office, and I open it, and there’s a closet and a bathroom. And I jump into my bathroom.”
She also said that as she was hiding in her bathroom “and then I just start to hear these yells of, ‘Where is she?!’ Where is she?!’”
When it turned out that the voice may have belonged to a security officer who may have been attempting to evacuate the office building (which is a six-minute walk from the Capitol) in a precautionary measure, AOC was not mollified. "It didn't feel right," she said.
Going back to Tuesday's AP story, AOC on Jan. 6, "was in her office when she heard repeated bangs on the door, like someone was trying to get in. Her legislative director told her to hide, and she went into the bathroom. That was when she heard a man yelling and trying to find her. “I have never been quieter in my life,” she said.
As the story of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to evolve, observers recalled that it may have been her acting skills that propelled her from a bartenders job to the nation's capital, where she exploded on the scene in 2018.
Saikat Chakrabarti, founder of the Justice Democrats PAC reportedly auditioned candidates to run against longtime establishment Rep. Joseph Crowley in the Democratic Party primary. Ocasio-Cortez was recruited and Chakrabarti became her chief of staff.
Subsequently, he left to form New Consensus, to promote the Green New Deal, after AOC reportedly failed to disclose to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that she and Chakrabarti controlled Justice Democrats while it simultaneously supported her primary campaign.
Free Press International
