A U.S. Capitol police officer was suspended Monday after an anti-Semitic document was found near his work area, the department said.
A congressional aide saw a hard copy of Sunday’s “Proceedings of the Meetings of the Elders of Zion” at a checkpoint inside an entrance to the Longworth House office building.
“When I left my office in Longworth yesterday, I discovered something that, as a Jew, horrified me. At the U.S. Capitol police security checkpoint, someone had left the vile anti-Semitic propaganda in plain sight, “said Zach Fish, chief of staff to New York Rep. Mondaire Jones. tweeted Monday.
The Washington Post, which first reported on the story, said Monday they had provided photos of the treaty sitting on a table in Longworth to Capitol police.
Acting chief Yogananda D. Pittman said he had suspended the officer pending an investigation “after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday.”
“We take all allegations of misconduct seriously,” Pittman said in a statement. “I immediately ordered the suspension of the agent until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate.”
Originally published in the 20th century, the vile treatment has become a basic text of white supremacist groups. The Anti-Defamation League describes her as “a classic of paranoid and racist literature.”
The U.S. State Department, in a 2004 report, said that “the clear purpose of the [document is] to incite hatred of the Jews and of Israel. ”
The copy found in the Congressional office building “was broken and was more than two years old,” Fish said on Twitter.
He wondered if the document had been approved, why the police had felt comfortable leaving it in plain sight, and how many others from the force shared those beliefs.
The department has been under scrutiny since the deadly January 6 uprising, when hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an effort to block certification of President Biden’s election victory.
“This is both a national security issue and a job security issue,” Fish wrote. “Our office is full of people (black, brown, Jewish, strange) who have good reason to fear white supremacists. If USCP is all there is between us and the people we saw on January 6, how can we feel safe? “
With publishing cables