Report: Capitol Police Field Offices Needed to Secure Lawmakers, Reduce Costs

Details emerging about the first field offices for the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) in San Francisco and Florida include making it easier to protect lawmakers from alleged ongoing threats and reducing the high cost of protecting them around the country.

“The USCP has enhanced our staffing within our Dignitary Protection Division as well as coordinated for enhanced security for Members of Congress outside of the National Capitol Region,” a press release issued in July stated. “The Department is also in the process of opening Regional Field Offices in California and Florida with additional regions in the near future to investigate threats to Members of Congress.”

The move was made in the wake of the January 6 riot at the Capitol where protestors breeched security to enter the building while Congress was in session to certify the 2020 election results, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The left-wing Chronicle reported details about the field offices, including that the plan was in the works before January 6, and said:

The move comes amid a reckoning for the historically obscure law enforcement agency. Lawmakers have called for change in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters violently overwhelmed police and stormed the Capitol building in a bid to overturn his election loss.

Officials familiar with the expansion plan, though, say it was in the works even before that watershed event, a reflection of a hyper-partisan environment that has yielded an increasing risk of domestic terror and violence, particularly from white supremacist-linked groups.

Few details about the new mission have been made available, even to the lawmakers who represent the Bay Area in Congress and will benefit from the additional protection. It is not clear when the outpost will open or how many staff it will have.

“At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” a Capitol Police spokesperson said in a statement. “A regional approach to investigating and prosecuting threats against members (of Congress) is important, so we will be working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in those locations.”

“We welcome our partners in the U.S. Capitol Police into the federal law enforcement community in Northern California and look forward to working with them to investigate and prosecute individuals and groups who engage in threats or acts of violence against members of Congress, their staffs, and other related criminal activity,” Abraham Simmons, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, said in the Chronicle report.

The Chronicle reported, using an unnamed source, about the location of the new field office in California’s Bay Area. It will be part of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, which as one of 80 federally recognized “fusion centers” serves hundreds of law enforcement agencies, local governments, and the private sector “by combining federal and local personnel to process threats to the region.”

The Florida office in Tampa will operate in a similar fashion.

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) said the expansion was planned “well before” January 6, not merely for security reasons but to counter the high cost of Capitol Police security details that protect California-based politicians, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The state has 53 House lawmakers who travel to D.C.

“This has been something they’ve been planning,” Davis, who is on the Committee on House Administration, told the Chronicle.

“They’re not talking about opening up their own individual offices,” Davis said. “They’re talking about working within the existing fusion centers. So it’s not as though they’re going to stand up an agency. They’re going to work hand-in-hand with local law enforcement.”

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