“Squad” Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York refused to answer questions from a reporter as to why his story changed after he pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court on charges that he illegally pulled a House office building fire alarm.
“Mr. Bowman, why did you plead guilty to knowingly pulling that fire alarm, when you said you didn’t know it?” CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju asked Bowman in an exchange that he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “You initially told us that you didn’t know it was a fire alarm.”
“Why are you still talking about this man?” Bowman said back. “That’s behind me, that’s been adjudicated, that’s done, paid the fine, moved forward — and in three months it’ll be dismissed.”
‘SQUAD’ DEM REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN FIRE ALARM FOOTAGE RELEASED AFTER GUILTY PLEA: ‘BOLD-FACED LIAR’
“But you weren’t straight about what happened initially,” Raju said, pressing the issue.
“I was very straight. I was straight from the very beginning,” he said again.
“But you said you didn’t know?” Raju asked.
“I was straight from the beginning,” Bowman repeated.
“Any other questions about anything else?” Bowman said, looking back and forth at reporters, then once more interrupting Raju in the middle of a question to abruptly leave.
“Peace and love y’all,” Bowman said, which prompted Raju to say “You’re not answering.”
JAMAAL BOWMAN PLEADS GUILTY IN DC COURT ARRAIGNMENT ON CHARGES FOR PULLING FIRE ALARM
D.C. Assistant Attorney General Peter Saba criminally charged Bowman with a misdemeanor for causing a false fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building ahead of a Sept. 30 vote. Bowman pled guilty to pulling a House fire alarm one day after voting against a resolution condemning Hamas.
Bowman said that he did not mean to pull the fire alarm and that he had done so while in a rush to go vote. The House at the time was debating and voting on a stopgap bill to fund the government temporarily and avert a shutdown.
“What I did was against D.C. law,” Bowman said. “As I said from the very beginning, I was not trying to disrupt any congressional proceedings, I’m glad the investigation yielded that.”
Bowman’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.
