Rep. Bruce Westerman, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, fired off a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland late Wednesday saying that Park Police requested additional manpower prior to the protest, but that the Interior Department denied those requests.
Westerman, who visited the site of the protest later Wednesday evening alongside other GOP lawmakers, demanded that Haaland provide adequate resources to the U.S. Park Police, which are tasked with protecting federal property.
The chaotic protest at Union Station came in response to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address about his nation's ongoing war against Hamas to a joint session of Congress.
During the protest, pro-Hamas agitators threw human feces at U.S. Park Police officers, burned an American flag, raised a Palestinian flag, and defaced several monuments with graffitied slogans such as "Abolish the U.S.A" and "Hamas is coming." Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday called for the Department of Justice to prosecute the offenders with the same vigor that it pursued the Jan. 6 rioters.
"It boiled my red American blood to see somebody take down the American flag and burn it and then raise the flag of a foreign country on a flagpole on public land. That crosses way past the free speech line, and it just infuriated me to tell you the truth," Westerman said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon.
Westerman, who visited the site of the protest later Wednesday evening alongside other GOP lawmakers, added that Park Police requested additional manpower prior to the protest, but that the Interior Department denied those requests.
According to Kenneth Spencer, the chairman of the U.S. Park Police's labor union, in addition to being denied resources on Wednesday, the police force has been significantly understaffed and lacks support from higher-ups at Interior.
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