Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana on Thursday defended his actions from the previous day when he removed an activist from a news conference on Capitol Hill.
In a video posted on Twitter, Higgins can be seen grabbing and pushing Jake Burdett, a progressive activist, away from an outdoor press conference where Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and other House Republicans were talking about the World Heath Organization.
After Burdett, 25, approached the podium and asked Boebert questions, including about her recently filing for divorce, Higgins stepped in front of him and said: “You’re out, you’re out.”
Higgins, 61, then began pushing Burdett.
“Get off me, get off me, Clay Higgins. Get off me. What are you trying to do, Clay Higgins?” Burdett can be heard saying, while repeatedly asking to be let go. “You’re manhandling me. Get off me.”
Higgins then told Burdett to “calm down.”
In a brief statement Thursday, Higgins defended his actions.
“Activist was a 103M. Threatening,” Higgins said, in an apparent reference to a police code for a “disturbance by mental person.”
“He was escorted out and turned over to Capitol Police. Textbook,” Higgins said.
Higgins also posted a video on Twitter in which he suggested Burdett “became very disruptive and threatening, in violation of the law,” and that he “aggressively disrupted Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and approached her in a threatening manner.”
Burdett, who earlier on Wednesday had attended a rally on Capitol Hill in support of the Medicare for All Act, did not immediately provide a comment to NBC News on Thursday night.
Kristy Fogle, founder of the Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition, who posted video of the incident, said on Twitter that police “watched my video and held Jake across the street until the press conference was over.”
Fogle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Capitol Police also did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night but in a statement to The Hill said, “We are aware of this situation, interviewing the people who were involved, and reviewing the available video.”
Bryan Gallion contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
