Exclusive: Pro-Hamas riots prompt congressional demands for prosecution
Pro-Hamas protestors who rioted in America’s Capital last week should be punished for their actions, a Republican lawmaker told Washington, D.C.’s United States Attorney.
In a letter first obtained by the Washington Reporter, Rep. Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.) wrote to U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, demanding that he “find and prosecute all individuals who undertook these illegal acts at Union Station to the fullest extent of the law,” referencing the pro-Hamas demonstration that took place near the Capitol building last week, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress.
Protesters “defaced [federal property by Union Station] with graffiti, tore down and burned the American flags which flew at the station, and replaced those American flags with the flag of a place governed by Hamas which is recognized by the Department of State as a foreign terrorist organization,” Bice said in the letter.
Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, recently warned that the “Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza, using a playbook we’ve seen other actors use over the years. We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.”
Washington, D.C., has been a hotbed for anti-Israel activity since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Bice noted: “On December 20, 2023, the Lincoln Memorial was vandalized with ‘Free Gaza,’ graffiti, on February 14, 2024, two activists vandalized the United States Constitution inside the National Archives, and on June 8, 2024, the Rochambeau Statue in Lafayette Park was graffitied by similar pro-Palestine protests,” Bice said. “Such vandalism on federal property against cherished American symbols should not be tolerated.”
The “utterly predictable” protests have resulted in “vandalism of federal property and assaults on Park Police,” Protect the Public’s Trust’s director, Michael Chamberlain, told the Reporter, and the organization that sought a permit to protest “did not even comply with its requirement before it was issued.”
The Department of the Interior should “actually do something to impose consequences on those who agreed to accept liability per the terms of the permit itself, and disincentivize repeat abuses in the future,” he added.
Graves, who previously “represented Qatar and foreign banks accused of financing terrorism,” regularly declines to prosecute suspects who have been arrested. In fiscal year 2022, for example, his office’s declination rate was almost 70 percent.