AOC forced to defend ‘near death’ experience claims at Capitol

Ocasio-Cortez revealed tearfully that she’s a victim of sexual assault as her Capitol story unraveled.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) attacked her critics who said she fabricated her “near death” experience during the Capital riots on Jan. 6.

Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC as she’s nicknamed, added a new ripple during her defense of her earlier claims, which have been shaken as new details emerge. On Monday, AOC said during an Instagram Live that she was a victim of sexual abuse while fighting back tears.

She said people watching will learn “things about me in the course of this that you didn’t know before… I’m a survivor of sexual assault.”

She used that claim to then disparage those who have been fact-checking her assertion that she was in imminent danger of death during the Capitol siege, saying they are like abusers themselves.

“The reason I’m getting emotional at this moment is that these folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened, or even telling us to apologize, these are the same tactics as abusers,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez, 31, initially claimed last month, “I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die.”

Online critics first poked holes in her story by pointing out that her office in the Cannon Building where she was hiding isn’t near the Capitol where the riots took place.

Ocasio-Cortez parried the criticism, saying, “We were all on the Capitol complex – the attack wasn’t just on the dome.”

However, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, whose office was nearby, said no rioters entered the area. “My office is 2 doors down. Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway. Egregious doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Ocasio-Cortez said she hid behind a bathroom door when Capitol policeman broke in. Even though she could see it was a policeman, she wasn’t sure about his identity, she says.

“[The situation] didn’t feel right because he was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility — and things weren’t adding up,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“There was no partner there and no one was yelling, he wasn’t yelling like, ‘this is Capitol police, this is Capitol police.'”

She then suggested that policemen cannot be trusted, “Like so many other communities in this country, just that presence doesn’t necessarily give you a clear signal if you’re safe or not.”