“Throughout the last six months, the United States Capitol Police (USCP) has been working around the clock with our Congressional stakeholders to support our officers, enhance security around the Capitol Complex, and pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency” (emphasis added), the United States Capitol Police said in a press release this week. As part of that “pivot,” the Capitol Police said they would be coordinating “for enhanced security for Members of Congress outside of the Capitol Region.” (Emphasis added.)
In what should make any believer in limited government, federalism, and civil liberties tremble, the press release added, “The Department is also in the process of opening Regional Field Offices in California and Florida with additional regions in the near future to investigate threats to Members of Congress.” And they intend to expand into multiple locations around the country.
All of this is in response to the mob that either broke into, or walked into, the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Of course, that mob was not in California, or in Florida, or in any other place outside of D.C. They were inside the Capitol, which is within the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police. Needless to say, they did not do a very good job on January 6 in carrying out their actual assigned mission, and it is hard to see why they should expand throughout the nation if they are unable to protect the Capitol.
“It has been six months since rioters attacked the United States Capitol and our brave police officers and law enforcement partners who fought valiantly to protect elected leaders and the democratic process,” the Capitol Police said in the statement signed by Acting USCP Chief Yogananda Pittman. “We will never forget USCP Officers Brian Sicknick and Howie Liegbengood, who died after the attack, nor the sacrifices of the nearly 150 law enforcement officers were injured.”
A spokesperson for USCP explained that the locations were picked because most of the present threats to members of Congress originate there. California is also the location of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents a congressional district in San Francisco.
Libertarian columnist Robby Soave retorted, “The Capitol Police are opening up offices in the states, and will become an intelligence gathering agency like the FBI and NSA. This is a nightmare scenario, one that civil libertarians of all stripes should oppose.”
It also highlights the hypocrisy of the Left, and the double-standard in how members of Congress of the two parties are presently treated by federal law enforcement. The FBI (which, along with local law enforcement can surely handle investigation of any actual threats to members of Congress) dismissed the attack upon Republican members of Congress, practicing for the annual baseball game between the Democrat and Republican members, as just a “suicide-by-cop.” Actually, the attack was carried out by a fanatical supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Representative Steve Scalise, the Republican Party whip from Louisiana, almost died in the attempted murder by the left-wing activist who specifically targeted Republican members of Congress.
Since there were no “cops” around that day, that assertion by the FBI is clearly untenable. Scalise and other Republicans were saved by Scalise’s security detail, who were in plain clothes.
And the attack on Senator Rand Paul by another Sanders supporter, which left Paul with an impaired lung, was generally dismissed by progressives as just a disagreement between neighbors over tree leaves.
It is also hypocritical, considering that Democrats around the country have been pushing the “defund the police” movement. Republican Representative Jim Banks of Indiana told the Washington Examiner, “House Democrats passed a bill on partisan lines that spends $3.5 million on capitol security per member sof Congress. When it comes to their own safety, House Democrats know that more police funding works. I wish Democrats started acting like regular Americans’ lives matter as much as Member of Congress. For now, it’s ‘Defund the Police for thee but not for me.”
Most significantly, however, is that these members of Congress are all for increasing the budget for federal law enforcement, while simultaneously advocating local police forces be defunded. The opening of branch offices, not only outside of the region around the Capitol, but all the way to the west coast of the country, is another indication that there are many whose principal desire is not to rein in allegedly racist local cops, but rather to nationalize the function of police in America.
Local control of policing is a bulwark against dictatorship. One of the first things that Adolf Hitler did when he got control in Germany was to nationalize the police — the infamous Gestapo. The constitutionalist John Birch Society has been raising this alarm for years with their famous car stickers, which read, “Support your local police — and keep them independent!”
Perhaps conservative radio host Jesse Kelly said it best, when he tweeted, “Any Capitol Police officer who steps foot in another state to set up a field office should be escorted immediately to the airport under threat of arrest.”
And any local or state officials who would tolerate this take-over by the federal government should be removed from office.
