Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has never shied away from correcting her detractors, and in a late-night tweetstorm, the congresswoman addressed recent conspiracy theories that she has a poor credit score and history of evictions.
“The right has gotten increasingly desperate [with] spreading targeted rumors about me lately,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter late Friday night. “Someone made up a meme that led to @snopes disproving this. (Also, I had to live alone in my family’s apt after my dad died, so the eviction lie is especially bad).”
The right has gotten increasingly desperate w/spreading targeted rumors about me lately.
Someone made up a meme that led to @snopes disproving this: https://t.co/M5ffXwvmtT
(Also, I had to live alone in my family’s apt after my dad died, so the eviction lie is especially bad) https://t.co/gJ8NYgenSR
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2019
According to fact-checking website Snopes.com, the rumor started with Facebook user Donn Johnson, a Florida security guard, who posted the following message after Ocasio-Cortez was appointed to the powerful House Financial Services Committee: “Congresswomen [sic] Cortez, from New York city, has been selected on the house finance committee, her credit score is 430 and has had two checking accounts closed, along with two sheriff evictions.”
But, according to Cortez and Snopes, there is zero evidence substantiating the rumors. And, as Snopes noted, it is essentially impossible for Johnson to have obtained this information about Ocasio-Cortez. But that didn’t stop the post from spreading across Facebook and the rest of social media. Johnson’s post was shared more than 30,000 times. It then spread to Twitter, where on February 7th, former CitiBank bond account executive and Trump supporter John LeFevre posted about it in a tweet that was retweeted more than 38,000 times.
.@aoc has a 430 credit score, two evictions, and an empty résumé
Just two months ago, she couldn’t afford an apartment in DC
Now, the Democratic leadership has put her on the Financial Services Committee & the media is saying that her Green New Deal will “reshape” the economy
— John LeFevre (@JohnLeFevre) February 7, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez fired back and criticized Republicans: “This stuff is really sad. The GOP is so intellectually bankrupt that they no longer engage to debate issues in good faith, but instead seek to lie, distort, name-call, target, & destroy people/communities [with] any means possible. It’s a virus and a race to the bottom.”
She added that she was astounded at the conflicting rumors surrounding her. She has been accused of both being wealthy and extremely poor. “It’s pretty wild that the GOP can’t decide whether they’re going to run with the conspiracy theory that I’m secretly rich, or the exaggeration & mockery of my family’s struggle after my dad died during the financial crisis,” Ocasio-Cortez concluded. “Instead, they decide to defy logic and run with both.”
