Clutching at straws

The current right-wing gotcha is claiming that Ocasio-Cortez lied about being in the Capitol during the attack. “She wasn’t even there!! She was in her office next door!!! Doesn’t count!!!!”

But some have questioned her story, with conservative critics mentioning that her office is in the nearby Cannon House, not the main Capitol building. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, whose office is close to Ocasio-Cortez’s, tweeted: “Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway.”

That’s fascinating, but how would AOC or anyone else have known that at the time?

Ocasio-Cortez has vigorously defended her account of the day. She shared a tweet by the alt-right activist Jack Posobiec, who claimed that the congresswoman was “not in the Capitol building at the time of her ‘near death’ experience.”

She wrote that these comments were part of a move by the right who were “manipulating the fact that most people don’t know the layout [of] the Capitol complex. We were all on the Capitol complex—the attack wasn’t just on the dome. The bombs Trump supporters planted surrounded our offices too.”

Her account was supported by Ari Rabin-Havt, former deputy campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ tilt at the Democratic presidential nomination last year. He tweeted that he was at the Rayburn Tunnel in the Capitol complex during the attack.

“Trying to find a hiding place, I moved to [Cannon]. A swat team came running through the tunnel intersection yelling it was not safe & I should find a place to hide. Anyone suggesting @AOC is exaggerating is ignorant or a liar.”

Or ignorant and a liar and a misogynist and a reactionary.

In another tweet he compared the attack with the evacuation of the Capitol complex on 9/11. “I’ve witnessed dozens of protests and security situations at the Capitol. I have traveled with two presidential campaigns. The only moment in my career I have been scared was in [Cannon] that day.”

I was jumping out of my skin that day and I was three thousand miles away.

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