It went from bad to worse pretty quickly for Rep. Jamaal Bowman this afternoon. Fresh off of pulling a fire alarm to delay a vote, the Congressman threw his staff under the bus when his talking point demands were leaked to the press:
From Politico:
Rep. Jamaal Bowman is circulating a list of talking points to fellow Democrats in a bid to stop the burgeoning GOP push to punish him after he set off a House fire alarm during Saturday's chaotic spending votes. The New York Democrat's press secretary sent a memo on Monday afternoon to all House Democratic offices requesting that they defend Bowman for the flap over the alarm, which has prompted a Republican push to sanction him …
One suggested response from Bowman’s office to questions about the incident: “I believe Congressman Bowman when he says this was an accident. Republicans need to instead focus their energy on the Nazi members of their party before anything else.”
Bowman is calling fellow Democrats to say he didn't actually approve the statement, according to one person familiar with the conversations.
Bowman shouldn’t be above the law:
Triggering a false fire alarm in a federal building is a violation of 18 USC 1512(c) and can carry with it a punishment of up to $10,000 in fines and aprison sentence of up to six months. Bowman could, however, be in even deeper legal trouble for subverting an official government proceeding, which is a felony that can carry a maximum of twenty years in prison. This is, by the way, the same statue that DC prosecutors and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice are using against citizen rioters who breached the capitol building on January 6, 2021.
… So if journalists aren’t going to get to the bottom of this, that leaves Merrick Garland, who also stated during his 60 Minutes interviewthat, “We do not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats. We don’t have one rule for foes and another for friends.”
So will consistency be applied?
P.J. Miller is a Chapter and Verse contributor.
First, he’s Frankie five fingers on the fire alarm and then plays the name game calling republicans “Nazis” -it takes one to know one.
A little too late to say you're sorry... You got caught with your hands in the cookie jar.