‘AOC LIED’ and ‘Alexandria Ocasio Smollett’ Trend as Critics Punch Holes In Her Dramatic Cap Hill Story

• “Alexandria Ocasio Smollett” and “AOC Lied” trended on Twitter amidst backlash over Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tale of her experiences during the Capitol Riot.
• The New York Democrat has repeatedly said she feared for her life, describing how she hid in her office bathroom after hearing loud banging and shouting on January 6 before a Capitol Police officer burst into her office.
• Critics pointed out that her office is not in the United States Capitol building, which rioters stormed that day, but in the Cannon office building down the street. 

“Alexandria Ocasio Smollett” and “AOC Lied” trended on Twitter amidst backlash over Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tale of her experiences during the Capitol Riot.

The New York Democrat has repeatedly described fearing for her life during the January 6 riot. In a Monday evening Instagram Live video, she said she hid in her office bathroom after hearing loud banging and shouting.

She described her fears at length before revealing that it was not rioters but a Capitol Police officer who entered her office. Multiple news outlets would inaccurately report that rioters entered Ocasio-Cortez’s office before deleting or editing these reports. Newsweek issued a correction clarifying the error.

“I thought I was going to die,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I have never been quieter in my entire life.”

She has not responded to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Critics pointed out that her office is not in the United States Capitol building which rioters stormed that day. Her office is instead located a short distance from the Capitol in the Cannon office building, which is included in the Capitol complex.

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Staff were told to evacuate the Cannon office building on January 6 after suspicious packages, including pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails, were found in the vicinity, Fox News reported.

News reports highlighting that Ocasio-Cortez was not in the Capitol building quickly gained attention on social media, and #AlexandriaOcasioSmollett began to trend, linking the New York Democrat to Black ‘Empire’ actor Jussie Smollett, who sparked national outrage in 2019 when he claimed he was a victim of a hate crime.

An investigation by the Chicago police found that Smollett paid two Nigerian brothers $3,500 to stage a fake attack in order to gain fame, the Associated Press reported.

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“This is the latest manipulative take on the right,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted after backlash. “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. The bombs Trump supporters planted surrounded our offices too.”

“People were trying to rush and infiltrate our office buildings – that’s why we had to get evacuated in the first place,” she continued. “The attempts of attackers & publicly available communications show how they tried to gain access and share location info on finding members for physical harm.”

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In response to criticism of her story, Ocasio-Cortez’s press team reportedly sent emails urging supporters to “force Twitter and Facebook to take action and enforce their own rules,” according to a copy of the email posted by journalist Fiorella Isabel.

“What’s so frustrating about these attacks, is that once the truth comes out, so few people get to hear it,” the email reportedly said, warning that “hundreds of thousands, or potentially millions” will have already seen and shared the “fake news.”

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Ocasio-Cortez also described the Capitol Police officer’s attitude as seemingly full of anger and hostility.

“It didn’t feel right,” she said. “Because he was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility. Things weren’t adding up. There was no partner there. He wasn’t yelling ‘this is Capitol Police, this is Capitol Police.’ And he was looking at me in all of this anger and hostility.”

Capitol Police have not responded to repeated requests for comment from the DCNF.