The spokesperson said in a statement that Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman on Monday ordered the officer’s suspension and that the officer will remain suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Bureau of the professional responsibility of the department.
“We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously,” Pittman said. “Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the suspension of the agent until the Professional Liability Office could conduct a full investigation.”
The Washington Post first reported that the officer was suspended after a congressional aide apparently saw the document in plain view at a checkpoint.
A printed copy of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Sion Scholars of Zion was left on a table inside an entrance to a building in the house, according to photos obtained by the Post. The text is a work of fiction published in a Russian newspaper in 1903, claiming to be documents showing a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The forged papers were used as propaganda and influenced Adolf Hitler, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Flags, signs and symbols of racist, white supremacist and extremist groups were displayed along with Trump 2020 banners and American flags during the January 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol. Explicitly anti-Semitic images were seen among the rioters in the crowd, and several police officers appeared to tolerate the rioters’ behavior.
A rioter who stormed the US Capitol wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz,” the name of the Nazi concentration camp where an estimated 1.1 million people were killed in World War II. The bottom of his shirt read: “Work brings freedom”, which is the rough translation of the phrase “Arbeit macht frei” which was on the gates of the concentration camp.
A Capitol policeman took a selfie with someone who was part of the crowd that passed the building, and another wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and started leading people around the building, according to the representative. Tim Ryan, a Democrat from Ohio. Both were suspended in January.
Zach Fisch, chief of staff to New York Democratic Representative Mondaire Jones, took a photo of the document Sunday night as he left the Capitol through one of the 24-hour entrances on the House side before sharing it with the Post, the reported paper.
See the document there “horrified me”, Fisch
mentionned in a series of Monday night tweets.
“It is at the same time a problem of national security and a problem of safety at work,” he said.
continued. “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 crowd we saw on January 6, how can we feel safe? “
CNN’s Madison Park, Curt Devine, Scott Bronstein, Peter Nickeas, Annie Grayer, Ryan Nobles, Mallory Simon and Sara Sidner contributed to this report.
