As Twitchy recently reported, the hashtag #AlexandriaOcasioSmollett is trending on Twitter this afternoon after reports that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in her office in the Cannon Building during the storming of the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 and not at the Capitol itself.
Complex is connected by underground tunnels. I’m not going to say it wasn’t a scary experience – I was scared to death for my friends working on Hill – but the idea she was especially targeted and interacted with people who wanted her dead would require them to… breach Cannon.
— Ellen Carmichael (@ellencarmichael) February 3, 2021
On Monday, Rep. Nancy Mace, whose office is two doors down from Ocasio-Cortez’s, tweeted that insurrectionists never stormed their hallway, despite reports in the media saying rioters broke into Ocasio-Cortez’s office and banged on the door of the bathroom in which she was hiding.
.@AOC made clear she didn’t know who was at her door. Breathless attempts by media to fan fictitious news flames are dangerous.
My office is 2 doors down. Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway. Egregious doesn’t even begin to cover it. Is there nothing MSM won’t politicize? pic.twitter.com/Tl1GiPSOft
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) February 2, 2021
We now know the person at her door was a Capitol Police officer, although she says she felt fearful of his “hostility.”
Check out the excerpt from Newsweek that Mace posted: “Ocasio-Cortez said that rioters actually entered her office, forcing her to take refuge inside her bathroom after her legislative director Geraldo Bonilla-Chavez told her to ‘hide, hide, run and hide.'” Newsweek also reported, “As members of the mob banged against her door, Ocasio-Cortez believed “this was the moment where I thought everything was over.”
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We just checked Newsweek for that story, but it reads a little differently now:
Ocasio-Cortez said that an individual actually entered her office, forcing her to take refuge inside her bathroom after her legislative director Geraldo Bonilla-Chavez told her to “hide, hide, run and hide.”
So “rioters” became “an individual,” although Newsweek’s story still reads, “As members of the mob banged against the door, Ocasio-Cortez believed ‘this was the moment where I thought everything was over.'” Newsweek did add a correction, though, clarifying, “Ocasio-Cortez’s office was actually entered by a Capitol police officer that did not identify himself.” So he forced her to take refuge in the bathroom?
Haley Byrd Wilt noted that “The Today Show” also appeared to have deleted a tweet with their segment on the story:
The Today Show appears to have deleted its tweet with the video of their segment about this. pic.twitter.com/VbZEV0De19
— Haley Byrd Wilt (@byrdinator) February 2, 2021
A lot of viewers of this segment are going to come away from it believing a random member of the mob broke into Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s office while she was in there, even though she said during her IG live that the man was a Capitol Police officer. https://t.co/YMb3gaATZb
— Haley Byrd Wilt (@byrdinator) February 2, 2021
A lot of quietly deleted tweets today over the detail in AOC's story that she thought she was hiding from the mob, but it turned out to be Capitol Police. She told it as she experienced it. https://t.co/wlzbpcEuvl
— Ben Smith (@benyt) February 2, 2021
Just to be clear, Mace wasn’t reacting to Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram video but to the mainstream media’s reporting, which had a mob banging on her door, although a lot of hostile people commenting on her tweet are arguing that the insurrectionists weren’t looking for her, a Republican, but for AOC specifically. Either way, Newsweek’s reporting was fake news, and “Today” appears to have memory-holed its segment.
Related:
AOC says reports she wasn’t in Capitol during riot are bogus because ‘most people don’t know the layout’ (actually they do) https://t.co/laV5yOI7ws
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 3, 2021
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