Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., claims that the breaching of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, was "a trial run," and warned her supporters that "they're going to come back."
"This is no joke," the socialist Democrat said during a town hall meeting earlier this week. "Jan. 6 was a trial run, and a lot of people don't seem to understand that."
The attack on the Capitol as Congress was certifying President Joe Biden's win in the previous November's election against Donald Trump left several people dead and injured more than 140 police officers. The Justice Department has charged more than 750 people in connection with the protest.
"They're going to come back," AOC said, according to Yahoo! News, without offering further details. "And if [Republicans] take the House, then they have the votes to not authorize and legitimize the presidential election."
"The only reason it wasn't worse was because Democrats had the House," she added. "And [Republicans] didn't have the votes in the House."
Ocasio-Cortez has spoken openly about her experiences from that day, including saying she was working though it in therapy.
"I didn't think that I was just going to be killed," she told CNN last summer, telling the news outlet she feared she would also be raped.
At the time of the breach, Ocasio-Cortez was inside her office in the Cannon Building, which is inside the Capitol complex but some distance from the Capitol Rotunda and House Chambers, according to The Daily Wire.
Many House Republicans, 139, voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election, according to Yahoo!, and text messages made public last week reveal how some GOP lawmakers were coordinating with the Trump White House.
The Daily Wire reported a former government nuclear weapons contractor named Matthew Martin was acquitted by a federal judge earlier this month on all charges related to the Capitol breach.
Martin argued that police let him enter the Capitol, and he was waved into the building.
Lawyer Alan Dershowitz told The Daily Wire the acquittal was "enormously important" and set a legal precedent.