Ocasio-Cortez Apologizes For Blocking Brooklyn Pol On Twitter

NEW YORK — U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apologized Monday for blocking one of her critics on Twitter a day before she was supposed to face him in court.

By offering the mea culpa, the far-left Bronx lamwaker avoided a courtroom confrontation with former state Assembly Member Dov Hikind, a conservative Brooklyn Democrat who sued to see her tweets.

"Mr. Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them," Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, said in a statement. "In retrospect, it was wrong and improper and does not reflect the values I cherish."

Now that she has apologized, Ocasio-Cortez will no longer testify Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court at a hearing on Hikind's lawsuit over her Twitter habits, her spokesperson Corbin Trent confirmed.

Hikind has argued Ocasio-Cortez violated his First Amendment rights by blocking her from seeing and responding to posts on her @AOC Twitter account, which she frequently uses to discuss politics and policy issues.

Hikind welcomed the lawmaker's apology.

"Just because you don’t like what someone is saying or you don’t like their way of saying it does not give you the right to abridge their freedom of speech," Hikind said at a news conference.

Hikind has pointed to a July federal appeals court ruling that President Donald Trump could not lawfully block his critics on Twitter. The court found that public officials using social media for government purposes cannot bar members of the public from engaging with them just because they dislike those people's messages.

Ocasio-Cortez has said she has blocked just a handful of her more than 5 million followers because of harassment concerns — which she maintained is a legitimate reason for barring users from seeing her posts.

"I reserve the right to block users who engage in actual harassment or exploit my personal/campaign account, @AOC, for commercial or other improper purposes," she said in her statement.

Hikind himself has blocked several people from seeing or responding to his tweets. Some of them have said they were shut out of his page when he was still an elected official.

Hikind admitted he was surprised that Ocasio-Cortez actually apologized. He said he was looking forward to demanding she "speak out about antisemitism" when they saw each other in person.

"You listen, maybe you even learn something from people who disgaree with you," Hikind said. "But you give them the opportunity to speak out — especially if you're (an) elected official."