Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., stated on Tuesday that the Justice Department still has not confirmed whether she is under federal investigation for a “Know Your Rights” immigration webinar she conducted in February.
“I’ve asked them, they haven’t responded to me, but you know, I was once again fully using the First Amendment to inform people of their constitutional rights. They say a lot of things, but I’ve written a formal letter, and they won’t respond,” Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News Digital. When asked what the fallout might be from the potential arrest of a lawmaker by the Trump administration, Ocasio-Cortez said that detention “without any actual grounds” would be a “tremendous sea change and escalation in what this administration is willing to do to bend laws, norms, et cetera, and how a normal functioning democracy works.”
Ocasio-Cortez also considered how America’s allies would perceive an “authoritarian development” like the U.S. arresting one of its own sitting congress members. “I sure hope that for all the saber-rattling that this administration is doing, that they really think about the global consequences of what it means for the United States,” she said, sounding somewhat concerned.
If Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) follows through on her latest anti-Trump pledge, she could face arrest, a spokeswoman from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned on Tuesday. Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, told Fox News viewers on Monday that the Bronx Democrat would be arrested if she engages in “the same kind of stunt” as other Democratic politicians who have recently interfered with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement in their efforts to house illegal immigrants suspected of violent crimes.
“If she trespasses and if she assaults law enforcement officers, as we saw earlier, I think that’s certainly on the table. As far as we’ve heard, a lot of Democrats make the argument that they’re just conducting oversight, congressional oversight,” McLaughlin said on ‘The Bottom Line.” On Sunday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video selfie on Instagram reacting to the news that federal officials had arrested Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Baraka was detained after a tense confrontation with ICE agents outside an immigration facility when he was denied entry.