Republican members of the House Oversight Committee are calling on the city government to provide police support to clear pro-Palestinian protesters at George Washington University.
Led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), Republican members of the House Oversight Committee visited the pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University on Wednesday, where tensions have increased since tents first popped up there on April 25.
During their walk-through of the encampment, Comer, along with Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Byron Donalds (R-FL), William Timmons (R-SC), and Eric Burlison (R-MO) were swarmed by hundreds of protesters, mostly on the pro-Palestinian side, and faced disruptive chants at a subsequent press conference.
“Mayor Bowser has let down the students of George Washington; she has led down the city of Washington, D.C. Everybody believes in peaceful protests, but this is trespassing now,” Donalds said at the conference. “The mayor is weak in the face of foolishness, and she will not do her job of enforcing the law in Washington, D.C. So we’re calling on the mayor to step up and support the president and the administration at George Washington.”
The Republicans said that the university administration has asked the city government and the Metropolitan Police Department to help clear the encampment but have not received the resources from the city to do so.
Comer noted that Congress has legislative authority over the capital district and passed legislation earlier this year that “rescinded Washington, D.C.’s soft-on-crime policies,” adding the committee is set to have an emergency hearing next Wednesday, where Congress will grill Bowser and city Police Chief Pamela Smith about their refusal to respond to the university’s requests.
The Kentucky Republican also said the committee would “follow the money trail to see if there are outside groups that are paying for the activity.”
Boebert noted the inherent hypocrisy in people who identify with LGBT sexual orientations and who support the Palestinians.
“I have seen signs here today that say ‘queer and trans folks for liberated Palestine,’ ‘gays for Gaza,’ ‘From the river to sea, Palestine will be free,’ ‘lesbians for Palestine,’ ‘Chinese for Palestine, followed by ‘All cops are bastards,'” Boebert said. “Not only is this disgusting but let me be very clear: Almost every single person in this so-called liberated zone would be eviscerated by the very terrorists you’re standing here supporting.”
At a separate press conference Wednesday, Bowser appeared defiant, saying, “The members have universities in their own districts, especially the member from North Carolina, and I was watching a lot of activity in North Carolina,” she said, referring to House Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and protests at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“It would seem that her energy would be best placed there,” Bowser added.
Michael Brown, a George Washington sophomore from Missouri who showed up to the encampment adorned in an American flag cape and Reagan-Bush 1984 T-shirt, told the Washington Examiner he would welcome a federal response to the protests, saying the Metropolitan Police Department has not been doing enough and the university police do not have the resources to shut down the protest.
On Monday, students blasted through the university-erected barriers meant to keep students out of University Yard while allowing them to leave. Since then, the encampment has extended into the street and has gone from about 20 students inside the occupation to what appears to be a couple hundred.
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“You need to get off our campus,” Brown said, referring to the protesters. “You are causing a disruption to both classes and D.C. because you’ve been standing in the street for the past week, and you’re blocking the flow of traffic, blocking everything.”
Brown said many students are paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend the school and are trying to take finals while protesters are outside beating drums and chanting.