Capitol Police Suspend Officer After Anti-Semitic Reading Material Found

Light catches the security fence around the U.S. Capitol, erected in the wake of the January 6th attack but now scheduled to start being removed, in Washington on March 15, 2021. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The U.S. Capitol Police suspended an officer on Monday after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area the day prior, the agency confirmed to The Epoch Times.

The officer, who was not named by the force in charge of protecting the Capitol building in Washington, will remain suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, a spokesperson said via email.

“We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously. Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate,” acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said in a statement.

Zach Fisch, chief of staff to Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), said he was the one who found the reading material.

“As I left my office in Longworth yesterday, I discovered something that, as a Jew, horrified me. At the United States Capitol Police security checkpoint, someone had left vile anti-Semitic propaganda in plain sight,” he wrote in a tweet.

Fisch said the material in question was the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

According to a summary from Encyclopaedia Britannica, the book, whose author is not known, purportedly details meetings held in Switzerland in 1897 at the time the first Zionist congress was convening.

The book alleges Jews and Freemasons made plans to disrupt Christian civilization and establish a global state. Both liberalism and socialism were said to be the method of subverting the social order.

“The Protocols is entirely a work of fiction, intentionally written to blame Jews for a variety of ills,” according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Those who distribute it claim that it documents a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. The conspiracy and its alleged leaders, the so-called Elders of Zion, never existed.”

Fisch wondered why a Capitol Police officer felt comfortable with leaving the printout, which he described as tattered, out in the open and speculated it could have been passed around.

“This is both a national security problem and a workplace safety problem. Our office is full of people—Black, brown, Jewish, queer—who have good reason to fear white supremacists. If the USCP is all that stands between us and the mob we saw on Jan. 6, how can we feel safe?” he added.

The Capitol Police force was both praised and criticized for how it responded to the Capitol breach on Jan. 6, with some lawmakers saying the force could have done a better job protecting the building.