In a recent media appearance, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insisted that House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has “gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens.” Greene appears to have been attempting to refer to the Gestapo, a Nazi Secret Police agency that she apparently wants observers to believe is on the level of the U.S. Capitol Police, who are supposedly “owned” by Pelosi, or whatever. Gazpacho is, in fact, a kind of soup. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) joined those clowning on Greene for her profoundly embarrassing mix-up. Referring to the recently renewed right-wing push to restrict access to certain books, Ocasio-Cortez quipped as follows:
‘At least [Greene] leads by example. She clearly banned all books from her house years ago… For real though when you see how the GOP openly embrace and leverage fascist members of their party vs how much some Dems run away and frame their own base mobilizers as “just as extreme” it’s not hard to see how that asymmetry/false equivalence has contributed to where we are.’
For real though when you see how the GOP openly embrace and leverage fascist members of their party vs how much some Dems run away and frame their own base mobilizers as “just as extreme” it’s not hard to see how that asymmetry/false equivalence has contributed to where we are
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2022
Greene was talking about an incident in which Capitol Police personnel entered the D.C. office of Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas). Nehls recently ranted on Twitter that Capitol Police personnel had “investigated my office illegally,” adding: “one of my staffers caught them in the act.” He insisted that on “November 20th, 2021, Capitol Police entered my office without my knowledge and photographed confidential legislative products protected by the Speech and Debate clause enshrined in the Constitution, Article 1 Section 6″… but as police subsequently noted, officers went in simply because it was open and it’s their job to secure the Capitol premises.
Gazpacho came in right under the wire https://t.co/kL8ZpmO3x3
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) February 9, 2022
U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Tom Manger clarified that “[if] a Member’s office is left open and unsecured, without anyone inside the office, USCP officers are directed to document that and secure the office to ensure nobody can wander in and steal or do anything else nefarious.” Manger also explained that the “weekend before Thanksgiving, one of our vigilant officers spotted [Nehls’s office] door was wide open. That Monday, USCP personnel personally followed up with the Congressman’s staff and determined no investigation or further action of any kind was needed. No case investigation was ever initiated or conducted into the Representative or his staff.”
Maybe if they read books instead of burning them they’d know the difference between gazpacho and gestapo.
— Dr. John Biggan (@Biggan4Congress) February 10, 2022
