Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is now facing an ethics complaint over accusations that she defamed Chaya Raichik, the creator of the Libs of TikTok Twitter account, during a recent House Oversight hearing.
The complaint, filed by the Heritage Foundation, centers on a question she asked Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter. She asked, “Are you aware that, from Aug. 11 to Aug. 16, [the Libs of TikTok] account posted false information about Boston Children’s Hospital claiming that they were providing hysterectomies to children?” Roth, in response, said, “Yes, I am aware of that.”
However, while the Libs of TikTok did post information about the Boston Children’s Hospital, it appears not to have been false. In the complaint, the Heritage Foundation cites information from the Boston Children’s Hospital’s website. That information from the website shows the medical center offered “gender affirmation surgery services to eligible adolescents and young adults who are ready to take this step in their journey.”
Further, the Heritage Foundation included in its complaint a study from the Journal of Clinical Medicine alleging that the Boston Children’s Hospital “performed 65 double-mastectomies on minors over the course of three years,” according to the complaint.
“Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation that the tweet contained false information is itself outrightly false on its face,” the complaint states.
Continuing, it says, “Surely Rep. Ocasio-Cortez watched the video herself before using it in her line of questioning, so she knew — at a minimum — that Ms. Raichik’s statement in her tweet was supported by the attached video, and she knew that Boston Children’s Hospital actually did tout its ‘gender affirming hysterectomies.’ Rep. Ocasio-Cortez knowingly made this allegation in bad faith.”
Fox News Digital, reporting more on the complaint and what is alleged in it, said:
Heritage’s complaint argues that with those and other statements, Ocasio-Cortez violated a House ethics rule by “knowingly and intentionally defaming Chaya Raichik, creator of the viral Libs of TikTok account, falsely accusing her of lying and disseminating disinformation…”
The nine-page complaint defends Raichik’s view that Boston Children’s Hospital performs gender affirming hysterectomies on young girls. Aside from being the “premier pediatric hospital,” Heritage noted that the hospital’s website notes that it performs gender affirmation surgery to “eligible adolescents,” and that the Journal of Clinical Medicine has documented that the hospital has “performed 65 double-mastectomies on minors over the course of three years.”
Other material collected by Heritage shows that gender affirmation surgery has been performed on patients as young as 15, and that the hospital “quietly changed its website to reflect that ‘genital surgeries are only performed on patients age 18 and older.”
In addition to that lie about what the hospital was up to, the Heritage Foundation complaint alleges that AOC “recklessly blamed Ms. Raichik and her tweet for the actions of other people reacting to Boston Children’s Hospital’s video, claiming that it fueled threats and harassment towards the hospital and its staff and incited violence against ‘trans and LGBT people.’”
It remains to be seen whether OCE will take the complaint seriously, or if the issue will be ignored.
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