A coalition of House Republicans wants Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and the National Park Service to investigate possible criminal activity that occurred last week during a pro-Palestinian protest in Washington.
NPS had issued a public gathering permit to the ANSWER Coalition to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress amid ongoing concerns about civilian deaths associated with the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.
That protest outside Union Station “quickly devolved into mayhem as protestors destroyed and vandalized federal property, assaulted law enforcement officers, burned an effigy of Prime Minister Netanyahu, razed and burned the American Flag, and hoisted foreign and terrorist flags on federal property,” according to the letter led by Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.).
It asks Haaland and NPS Director Chuck Sams to investigate whether “the individuals the ANSWER Coalition identified as its event leaders” should be “held accountable for violations of the permit’s provisions, all damages to federal property, and the myriad other laws broken during the demonstration.”
