Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York pulled the fireplace alarm in a Capitol workplace building on Saturday forward of an important, last-minute House vote that finally avert a authorities shutdown, his workplace confirmed.
In an announcement late Saturday night, Bowman stated that he was “speeding to make” the vote and “got here to a door that’s often open for votes however as we speak wouldn’t open.”
He stated he was “embarrassed to confess that” he “activated the fireplace alarm, mistakenly pondering it will open the door.”
He went on to say that he was not “in any manner making an attempt to delay any vote. It was the precise reverse — I used to be making an attempt urgently to get to a vote, which I did.”
He added that he met with each the Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police following the incident.
U.S. Capitol Police confirmed in an earlier assertion that the fireplace alarm brought about an evacuation of the Cannon workplace building at 12:05 p.m. Eastern time. The building was evacuated whereas Capitol law enforcement officials checked it, and the building was reopened after it was decided that there was no menace.
“An investigation into what occurred and why continues,” that assertion stated.
The House voted 335-91 on Saturday on a bipartisan stopgap spending measure to fund the federal government for 45 days, a dramatic last-minute vote that may cease a authorities shutdown that had appeared all however inevitable simply hours earlier. The invoice was later pased by an 88-9 margin within the Senate, nearly three hours a midnight Saturday deadline to keep away from a shutdown.
The GOP-led House Administration Committee stated Saturday that an investigation was already underway into Bowman pulling the fireplace alarm.
Calling the incident “severe,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy instructed reporters he could be chatting with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in regards to the incident and that he was going to ask the House Ethics Committee to look into it.
“This is a humiliation,” McCarthy stated. “You’re elected to be a member of Congress. You pulled a hearth alarm in a minute of hours earlier than the federal government being shut down? Trying to dictate the federal government would shut down? What’s going by means of an individual’s thoughts like that? But we are going to discover the correct skill to cope with this.”
Jeffries instructed reporters that he hadn’t seen the video of the incident but.
— Keshia Butts contributed to this report.
