Capitol Police chief says threats against lawmakers increasing

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said Tuesday that threats against members of Congress are on pace to exceed those received in fiscal 2018.

During Sund’s testimony before the House Administration Committee, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who was present at an Alexandria, Va., baseball field when a gunman shot at several House Republicans and seriously wounded House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) in 2017, questioned Sund about the number of threats to members of Congress.

{mosads}“We continue to see the threat assessment cases that we’re opening continue to grow,” Sund told the committee. “For FY 2018, we had approximately 4,894 cases. So far for this year, we have 2,502 cases. So we’re on par to probably break last year’s.”

Sund’s testimony came two days after President Trump sent a series of tweets telling four progressive nonwhite congresswomen to “go back” to other countries. All four are U.S. citizens and only one, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), was born outside the U.S.

Following the tweets, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) sent a letter to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger, chairman of the Capitol Police Board, asking for an emergency meeting to examine the board’s approach to risk analysis for members at particularly high risk.

“On Sunday, July 14, 2019, President Trump used social media to directly attack four members of Congress,” Thompson wrote. “To date, Trump continues to use social media to vilify these four members.”

I have sent a letter to the US Capitol Police, urging for member security procedures to be re-evaluated immediately. pic.twitter.com/YP0SXpbB8b

— Bennie G. Thompson (@BennieGThompson) July 16, 2019

Omar discussed the threats she has received before and an upstate New York man was arrested earlier this year for allegedly threatening to assault and murder her.