Democrat Privilege in Effect As Jamaal Bowman Escapes Ethics Committee Investigation Over Fire Alarm Stunt
“A majority of the Members of the [Ethics] Committee did not agree to establish an ISC [Investigative Subcommittee] or report to the House regarding Representative Bowman’s conduct.”
Last month, a rather damning video was released of Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s actions on the day he pulled the fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building, painting a picture that was severely at odds with Bowman’s official story that he was “confused” by the door having alarm signs on it.
For those who missed it, in the clip, we saw the New York Democrat and Squad member calmly walking towards the doors, pushing for a moment, pulling the signs off of them, pulling the alarm, and walking away without looking back. At no point did he wait for the doors to open, nor did he appear to be in the “rush” he initially said he was in to cast a vote in the House of Representatives:
🚨 NEW FOOTAGE: Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman removes warning signs before pulling the fire alarm in a House office building last month pic.twitter.com/dhwOQN2G6y
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 26, 2023
After a Capitol Police investigation was completed, alleging that Bowman “willingly or knowingly gave a false fire alarm within the District of Columbia,” a misdemeanor charge was filed by the D.C. Attorney General’s office.
Bowman turned himself in, pled guilty to pulling the fire alarm, and agreed to pay the $1,000 fine as part of a plea deal, with no jail time expected and the charge to be dropped in three months though it appeared pretty obvious from the video clip that Bowman had committed a felony by deliberately obstructing/delaying a Congressional proceeding.
In an update to this story—and to further prove the point about the two-tiered system of justice we have in this country—Bowman has once again escaped punishment for his actions, with the House Ethics Committee announcing last week that a majority of members did not agree to establish an investigative subcommittee:
On October 26, 2023, Representative Jamaal Bowman was charged by the D.C. Attorney General’s Office with a misdemeanor violation of making a false alarm of fire. Pursuant to Committee Rule 18(e)(2) and House Rule XI, clause 3(b)(9), within 30 days of a Member being indicted or otherwise formally charged with criminal conduct, the Committee shall either establish an Investigative Subcommittee (“ISC”) or report to the House describing its reasons for not establishing an ISC.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 10(a), establishment of an ISC and a report to the House regarding the conduct of a Member both require an affirmative vote of a majority of the Members of the Committee. A majority of the Members of the Committee did not agree to establish an ISC or report to the House regarding Representative Bowman’s conduct.
BREAKING: The House Ethics Committee just voted against opening an investigation into Rep. Jamaal Bowman for pulling the fire alarm.
No DOJ charge for "obstructing an official proceeding" for Bowman or investigation from House Ethics.
Just one misdemeanor. pic.twitter.com/Z4AEAAN14z
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 22, 2023
Unlike most other Congressional committees, the House Ethics Committee is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats at 5-5, so even if all five Republican members voted to proceed with establishing an ISC, they’d need one vote from the Democrat side to move forward, which obviously didn’t happen here.
So for those keeping score at home, after Bowman committed a felony in September by pulling the fire alarm in order to try to delay a House vote to avert a government shutdown, he has faced one minor misdemeanor charge to which he pled guilty, paid a small fine, and had to issue a formal apology to the Capitol Police. The charge will be dropped in three months.
Bowman has not even faced a censure vote in the GOP-controlled House (although a resolution was filed in late October by Michigan Republican Rep. Lisa McClain), and now he will not face an investigation by the Ethics Committee.
Democrat privilege is worth so much. Politico: "House Ethics declines to investigate Rep. Jamaal Bowman over fire alarm incident" https://t.co/P48h6b8IT9
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) November 26, 2023
If this isn’t a clear-cut case of Democrat Privilege in full effect, I don’t know what is.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Rules for thee but not for me
Call me out and I’ll call it bigotry.
No, it is not bigotry, it’s Democrats not wanting to pursue one of their own, when he has not committed any significant crime, and has already been dealt with appropriately by the authorities. No Republican would face ethics charges either, for the same reason. Republicans would not vote to bring charges unless there were a serious violation, or unless the accused member was very unpopular within the party.
I absolutely disagree with you. If it had been a Republican the DOJ would have charged the person with a Felony and at least one bumbling idiot Republican on the Ethics (cough, cough) Committee would have voted with the Democrats for an investigation.
What felony could a Republican have been charged with? And what possible role could the DOJ have had in the matter? He didn’t commit any federal offense, so the DOJ was not involved.
Insurrection, obstructing an official proceeding of the Congress, and so on. basically the whole Jan6 panoply except for being in the building in the first place since he is a member of the body.
Not rocket science.
To prevent some misconstruing of what I wrote: The issue is the double standard. I am not saying this is a correct interpretation of the law, but it is obviously the dominant one – at least as long as it is directed against non-leftist people. To be consistent all Democrats would have had to vote for the Ethics investigation.
And now you’re just lying. You know that no Republican would have been charged with any of those things, because they didn’t happen. Why do you think you haven’t been charged with any of those things? Why haven’t any of us, who weren’t there on Jan-6-2021, been charged? Obviously because they’re not just rounding up random Republicans and making up charges out of thin air. Obviously being a Republican has not been turned into an offense.
Yes, the people who were there have been subject to a witch-hunt and have been treated very unfairly; but they did something. They participated in an event that the Democrats have falsely labeled an “insurrection”, and to which they have retroactively applied the law against obstructing an official proceeding. But people who did not participate in that event have not been charged. Since nothing Bowman did could possibly be called an “insurrection” or “obstructing”, he would not have been charged even if he were a Republican.
Being a Republican is a chargeable defense
There’s the real world, and then there’s the one we’d like to be living in. Look at what they have done to Trump, Jan 6 “insurrectionists” and others. “Show me crime and I’ll show you the man” is now how things are done in this country. You are assuming this system is still legitimate when it clearly is not.
I really am not sure what you want to say here, Milhouse. Maybe your response was not directed at my comment? If it was I can easily explain why no Republican has been charged for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol complex. Not one of them did.
That, too, did not require some esoteric mental gymnastics but is obvious and common sense.
Felix, yes, that was directed at you. You were the one who claimed that a Republican in the same place would have been charged with insurrection and obstruction, and your proof was from the Jan-6-2021 protesters. If that were so, then why have no Republicans been charged with any of those things, or anything else, in the last two years? Clearly there is no jihad against Republicans such as you claim is happening, and a Republican who acted as Bowman did would have been treated exactly as Bowman has been. A misdemeanor charge by the DC, no federal charges because there was no federal crime, and no ethics committee action.
BierceAmbrose and Virginia, the same goes to you. If your claim were true then why has no Republican who was not at the Capitol that day been brought up on some similar trumped-up charges? Obviously your claim is false, and Bowman was treated exactly as a Republican who did the same thing would have been. The Jan-6-2021 protesters have indeed got a raw deal, but that is not part of a general breakdown of
Once the requirement that the charge fit is abandoned, any one will do. There’s books of them.
You thoroughly misread my comment then.
I was answering your question “what could a Republican be charged with?” — reading it as “what would he be charged with for the actions caught on camera if he were a Republican instead of a Democrat?”
In answer to that question I reminded you of a couple of the innovative charges Jan6 defendants had to face. Those, obviously, can be —mutatis mutandis— applied to the intentional use of a fire alarm to disrupt congressional proceedings. Apparently there is no requirement that the plan can conceivably work or that the delay to be expected is in any way significant.
I did not provide that list as “proof” for anything, nor as “evidence”, nor did I claim there is a “jihad” against Republicans, although it is clear that there is a double standard at play. I assume you are not wilfully blind and see that disparate treatment yourself.
Factual, as normal for you, Milhouse. But the thrust of the article seems to have escaped you. The disproportionality is the problem. He was not dealt with as harshly as would have been, say, a civilian Trump supporter or conservative member of Congress. He is being shown great leniency, such as was evidenced with the deal Hunter Biden had concerning his illegal acquisition of a firearm by perjuring himself on a government form. It’s not that Bowman wasn’t treated fairly or properly, it’s that we have recent examples of people committing similar crimes and suffering severe retribution (not merely “justice”) for their acts.
Yes, he was. A civilian Trump supporter, or a conservative member of Congress, who did the same thing would have got the same treatment. There has been no leniency; a minor misdemeanor has been treated exactly as it is. We do have examples of double standards, but not for similar offenses. Show me anyone whose offense was comparable to Bowman’s and who was treated more harshly.
Black
Democrat
and a Jamaaaal, so gets brownie (!) points for his muslim name.
Keeping firmly in mind that the Democrats are a Party of the Left; today I ran across an old German political term dating from the National Socialist regime.
Sonderberichtbarkeit; the immunity from prosecution for any acts in violation of criminal law in service of the Party and State.
Subotai Bahadur
I’ve been on the lookout for another of those gloriously precise German words we don’t borrow enough.
Found it, thank you.
That’s what I figured.
Bullshit. I don’t understand how you can write something like this. Not only is it not obvious, it’s obviously false. He did not obstruct or delay any Congressional proceeding at all, so how can he have done so deliberately? So where is the felony?
Irrelevant. If a Republican had done it, there would have been charges. Manufactured, but they would be there an nobody would be saying “hey, wait a minute.”
No, there wouldn’t have been. Show me one example of a comparable offense by a Republican that was treated more harshly than Bowman has been.
This is not only pure speculation without even a shred of evidence, it’s stupid speculation. What could possibly lead anyone to suppose that that was his purpose? I have no idea why he did it, but neither do you. Only he knows why he did it, and he’s not saying. He gave an explanation which is an obvious lie, so his true motive remains a mystery. But for it to have been what you speculate, you would first have to explain why he would have thought it would have that effect.
Occam’s Razor.
No, we don’t actually know. But to say that we have no idea is ridiculous.
Really? So tell me, what do you think his motive was, and why do you think so?
If you tell me that you think he wanted to delay the vote, and thought that pulling this stunt would have that effect, then you’ll have to show how he could have thought so. Just saying “he’s stupid” is not enough, because it can equally cover any fanciful motive. He could just as easily have been stupid enough to think it would cause money to rain down on him, or that it would trigger an earthquake.
Let’s see, what events are the normal result of pulling a fire alarm in a building?
-Alarms sound throughout building
-People evacuate to predetermined assembly points outside
-Automatic notification of Fire Department
-Wait for Fire Department to arrive and clear the building before allowing people back inside
Time frame for all of this to occur is approximately two hours. Seems like a delay tactic to me
Are you seriously an idiot, or are you only pretending to be one?
We all know that none of that affected the vote going on in the House. But you seem to be arguing that he thought they would; explain how he thought that would happen.
star1701gazer: -Alarms sound throughout building
Which building?
Zachriel, shhhh.
And no high school student ever pulled a fire alarm knowing that it would cause the school to be evacuated, disrupting any and all activities taking place therein, not to mention delaying the inevitable test the teen was attempting to evade. To believe that this sort of thing happens is entirely fanciful.
Dave, please explain how why think Bowman imagined that getting the building evacuated could possibly have disrupted a vote going on in the House.
Where are all of these noble, sterling Sidney Poitiers that Hollywood has been shoving down our throats for a half-century?