Shortly before the House was scheduled to vote on a government funding bill to prevent a shutdown, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building.
The New York Democrat has since shared that the incident, revealed by House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), was an accident.
Steil spoke with CNN about Brown’s actions on Saturday, saying he needs to be “far more forthcoming.”
“We know Jamaal Bowman pulled the fire alarm. Why he did that? It is pretty unclear. His initial explanation, that it was an accident, doesn’t seem to really pass muster,” Steil told CNN.
He also went on to warn that if Bowman pulled the alarm to interfere with the House’s attempt to avoid a government shutdown, then it would be “a serious violation of the law.”
Bowman told reporters before Steil’s comments that it was “complete BS” that his colleagues across the aisle were accusing him of trying to stop the passage of the last-minute bill.
Bowman’s office shared that it was an accident, and the congressman told reporters he “was trying to get to a door. I thought the alarm would open the door, and I pulled the fire alarm to open the door by accident.”
He continued saying he was trying to go vote and that the “door that’s usually open wasn’t open, it was closed.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the House Ethics Committee should look into the incident, saying the situation was “serious.” He added that he also expects to speak with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about what happened.
Bowman said he met with Jefferies, and the Democrat leader was “supportive” and “understood that was a mistake.”
Still, McCarthy says that the incident shouldn’t “go without punishment.
“This is an embarrassment. You are elected to be a member of Congress. You pulled a fire alarm in a (matter) of hours before the government being shut down, trying to dictate that the government would shut down?” McCarthy said.