Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), third-ranking House Republican:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York):
“I had a pretty traumatizing event happen to me. And I do not know if I can even disclose the full details of that event due to security concerns, but I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die. I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive. And not just in a general sense, but also in a very very specific sense. There was a sense that something was wrong, obviously with the violence, but there was a sense that something was wrong from the inside. As we saw, there were members of capital police who were quite heroic. We have many officers and there were also black and brown officers that were confronting white supremacists and putting themselves, not just to protect members, but they put themselves in harm’s way on the front line, facing the racist violence of white supremacists ordered by Donald Trump to attack the Capitol. And so there were those acts of heroism. But next to that, there was also acts of betrayal. And to run in the Capitol in our nation’s capital and not knowing if an officer is there to help you or to harm you is also quite traumatizing.
“I myself did not even feel safe going to be that extraction point, because there were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers and, frankly, white supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point who I know, and who I had felt would disclose my location, who would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, etc. And so. I didn’t even feel safe around other members of Congress.”
