Last week, the shocking image of two burning twin towers from the 9/11 attacks appeared on the cover of the New York Post, along with a caption calling out Rep. Ilhan Omar.

“Here’s your something,” it read.

This was a dangerous exploitation of a national tragedy to gain political points. As a fellow Muslim woman of color who wears a hijab and understands the deadly implications of Islamophobia and bigotry, I’m disappointed that another member of Congress, my very own Rep. Dan Crenshaw, played a role.

The controversy emerged from a video clip of a speech that Omar, D-Minnesota, gave at a recent banquet for the Council on American Islamic Relations, whose stated mission is “to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice and empower American Muslims.”

Omar was speaking to a majority Muslim audience about how the civil liberties of Muslim Americans have been stripped away after 9/11. “Far too long,” she said, “we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen. And frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

It is evident from the full video that Omar was using the phrase “some people did something” to distinguish between American Muslims who had their civil liberties revoked and the foreign terrorists who committed the attacks.

But this context was stripped away when a questionable “imam” tweeted an edited version and added: “Ilhan Omar mentions 9/11 and does not consider it a terrorist attack on the USA by terrorists, instead she refers to it as ‘Some people did something,’ then she goes on to justify the establishment of a terrorist organization (CAIR) on US soil.”

Omar did not do that, but Crenshaw, R-Texas, jumped to share the tweet with a base that had previously accused her of being anti-Semitic, adding, “First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as ‘some people who did something.’ Unbelievable.”

These words were shared thousands of times more. They were cited by a Fox & Friends host who invoked an anti-Muslim trope by questioning Omar’s loyalty to the U.S. Then came the New York Post cover. All this occurred just days after a man was arrested in New York for threatening to kill Omar and harassing her staff.

Finally, President Trump shared the clip spliced with video of the burning towers on Friday, adding, “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”

When Omar called out Crenshaw’s rhetoric as incitement, referencing the death threats she regularly receives, he doubled down. “I never called you un-American. 2. I did not incite any violence against you. 3. You described an act of terrorism on American soil that killed thousands of innocent lives as ‘some people did something.’ It’s still unbelievable, as is your response here.”

What is unbelievable are not Omar’s words or response, but Crenshaw’s refusal to acknowledge his role perpetrating a lie and the real harm his political attack could cause. Had he done his research, he would know that he was furthering a false and Islamophobic narrative that has deliberately attempted to link Omar (and Muslim Americans in general) to 9/11. (Last month, a poster with Omar’s image underneath the burning towers was displayed in the rotunda in the West Virginia Capitol). He would also know that Muslims mourned along with the rest of the country during the attacks, as they, too, lost loved ones, including a first responder, Mohammad Salman Hamdani. Finally, he would know Omar was one of the co-sponsors of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.

Members of Congress have a responsibility to exhibit better decorum than internet trolls, firing off whatever reaction comes to mind. Unfortunately, Crenshaw and other Republicans such as Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York, who consistently calls Omar anti-Semitic, have shown a lack of concern for the negative repercussions of their speech.

Words matter. These members of Congress may not have directly incited violence against Omar, but they are not absolved from blame, as their speech could be weaponized and encourage those who want to commit heinous acts. Hate crimes, even though underreported, increased in the last three years, with Muslim and Jewish people being targeted most often for religion and black Americans for race and ethnicity. Trump’s rallies held in 2016 had an effect, as a recent study showed that hate crimes rose dramatically in counties that hosted them.

I’m sure many of Crenshaw’s constituents would agree with me that potentially endangering a fellow member of Congress to score political points is reprehensible. If Crenshaw were actually concerned about Omar’s intentions, he could have reached out to her office. Instead, he wrongly called her out on a social media platform that limits conversations to 240 characters, not nearly enough to include the context in a single post.

Crenshaw of all people should understand all this, as he said after his “Saturday Night Live” appearance after Pete Davidson’s apology to him: “I would appreciate if everyone would stop looking for reasons to be offended,” and “We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in each other.”

It would do a lot of good for Crenshaw and others to follow his own advice.