House Freedom Caucus Republicans called on Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray to prosecute those who desecrate and tear down monuments and statues across the country.
“We can acknowledge the necessity of federal intervention when states and local jurisdictions allow the rights of their citizens to violate public property to be attacked, vandalized, and destroyed,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs said at a press conference Thursday.
Federal officials should “immediately begin making arrests of those who are attempting to violate rights and disturb our peace and vandalize our federal property and attacking our private property,” said Biggs, an Arizona Republican.
President Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday, authorizing federal officials to arrest anyone who desecrates or destroys any monument on U.S. federal property. An individual could face up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act.
Biggs and his fellow Freedom Caucus members made this appeal on the day before protesters threatened to pull down another Washington, D.C., monument, the Lincoln Emancipation statue, after failing to pull down President Andrew Jackson’s memorial statue in Lafayette Park earlier in the week.
However, a mob of protesters in the district last Friday managed to pull down the statue of Confederate officer Albert Pike and set it ablaze.
“You don’t have liberty if you don’t have order,” said Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy. “It’s time for the federal government to do its job and enforce the laws of the United States. We have federal laws on the books that prohibit the kind of vandalism that is attacking our memorials.”
