Defund the Police sympathizers from the so-called “Squad” collectively spent over $325,000 on private security in 2021, after continuously promoting the radical left-wing policy, according to a report.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports analyzed by Fox News revealed that Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) was one of the biggest spenders from the so-called “Squad.” Bush reportedly spent over $65,000 in the fourth financial quarter filing alone on private security, totaling approximately $200,000 combined in 2021, using firms like Peace Security and Whole Armor Executive Protection.
Bush, who spent the most out of all of the Squad members, was sworn into office at the beginning of last year but has been a large supporter of defunding the police. Last year, during a live CBS News interview, she said, “defunding the police has to happen,” but when confronted about hiring private security, she replied: “You would rather me die? Is that what you want to see? You want to see me die?”
The report indicated that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) only spent about $9,800 during the fourth financial quarter filing, but in 2021 she totaled $75,000 — the second biggest spending on private security from the Squad, but tens of thousands of dollars less than Bush.
In the summer of 2020, at the height of the defund the police movement, Ocasio-Cortez, in a statement regarding the proposed budget cuts to the New York Police Department, said, “Defunding police means defunding police.”
She continued: “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget, so the exact same police remain in schools.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) reportedly spent $30,000 on private security in 2021 after she supported “dismantling” the police department in Minneapolis in 2020. She claimed that the Minneapolis Police Department was “rotten to the root.” Defending her stance, she said defunding the police was about “reimagining the current police system to build an entity that does not violate us while relocating funds to invest in community services.”
Fox News reported that Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) spent roughly $14,000 last year, while Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) spent $7,872, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) spent less than $3,000.
Fox News wrote about Pressley and Bowman’s views on defunding the police:
Pressley, like her colleagues in the “Squad,” has been vocal about defunding the police and said in June 2020 that it is “about true reparations” and “investment in communities.” During a CNN interview last summer, she said she stands by her support of defunding police, saying, “I support a radical reimagining of community safety and public safety, which means reallocating and not further investing in a carceral state.”
Bowman, who requested and received a special police detail at his Yonkers home after the Jan. 6 chaos last year, has tweeted out support of defunding the police multiple times on his Twitter account and said in 2019, “It’s time to disarm the police.”
However, while the Squad collectively spent over $325,000 on private security in 2021, groups aligned with Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams collectively spent over $1.2 million in 2021.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.