Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley dismissed GOP calls to expel Representative Jonathan Bowman from the House over his recent fire alarm incident “madness.”
Bowman, a progressive Democrat who has represented New York’s 16th District since 2021, pulled a fire alarm at his congressional office building on Saturday, prompting an evacuation. Republicans have accused the congressman of trying to disrupt the voting process on the stopgap government funding bill to allow Democrats more time to work through it. GOP lawmakers have called for various punishments for Bowman, ranging from an ethics inquiry to his expulsion from the House.
“It’s not just pulling any fire alarm. It’s pulling a fire alarm in the middle of a proceeding,” GOP Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York said in an interview with Politico. “He was a high school principal. If anyone knows the old trick of pulling a fire alarm, it’s a high school principal. [Bowman was the principal of a middle school].”
Bowman has countered, claiming that he pulled the alarm in confusion while attempting to unlock a door in his building that was usually unlocked and that he had been in a rush to try and get to the House floor to vote. An investigation into the incident remains ongoing.
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Appearing on Fox News Monday, Turley discussed recent comments from Malliotakis, who claimed to have 12 co-sponsors for a bill to expel Bowman. The legal analyst dismissed this idea, saying that the congressman’s actions were likely not grounds for such an action and warned that going through with it could be a slippery slope.
“It most certainly can be charged as a misdemeanor, a criminal misdemeanor,” Turley said. “Now, does that mean that it’s grounds for expulsion? I don’t think so. You know, if you start to do this, you’re going to find a lot of folks are pushing for the expulsion of others. The fact that over hundreds of years, we’ve only expelled five members should tell you something. They always had that power, but I think both sides recognize that down this road lies madness. If we start to expel members, it’s going to become an insatiable appetite.”
Newsweek reached out to Turley and Bowman via email for further comment.
Writing in a piece for Media Matters critical of the Republican reaction to Bowman, journalist Matt Gertz noted that only a still image from a security camera has been released, showing Bowman pulling the alarm. The full security camera footage, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would have the authority to release, might vindicate Bowman’s claim that he had been struggling with the door in the lead-up to pulling the alarm.