Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez returned for a second round of questioning, digging in on the circumstances surrounding the Justice Department’s move to drop the charges against Adams, as he repeated his previous refrain that he did nothing wrong.
Ocasio-Cortez, who sought the ranking member post late last year, is no longer a member of the committee but joined the hearing Wednesday. In an earlier round of questioning, she asked Adams about his meeting with the president and his lawyer’s meeting with prosecutors.
“This is important not just for the city of New York, but for the people of the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that what is being alleged “is genuinely not just about what may or may not have occurred from the mayor’s office,” but what is happening at the DOJ more broadly.
Ocasio-Cortez said that the prosecutors who resigned rather than file a motion to drop charges against Adams were “not Democratic U.S. attorneys,” pointing to the Republicans who suggested as well “that the prosecutorial power at the Department of Justice may be influencing what is occurring.”
“Instead of carrying that out, and carrying out the erosion at the Department of Justice, they would have preferred to give up their entire careers,” Ocasio-Cortez said, referring to the prosecutors. “Seven lifelong public servants involved in law enforcement, mind you.”
The New York Democrat called the developments a “four-alarm fire that everyone must be paying attention to,” raising the question of whether Adams’ interactions with the Justice Department were an isolated case or indicative of a broader pattern in other jurisdictions.
“For a party that talks about states’ rights and municipal rights, we must defend, yes, the rule of law, including in the Department of Justice,” she concluded.