Members of the “Squad” collectively spent over $100,000 on private security, according to FEC documents.
The documents, reviewed by Fox News, reported that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “campaign spent over $10,000 on private policing with Cest Bond Collective, Three Bridges NY LLC and Tullis World Wide Protection, eclipsing Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s, D-Mass., personal security bill of almost $4,000 with Ware Security Consultants Inc.”
Additionally, the documents show Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “has spent over $22,000 on private security with Aegis Logistics LLC and Lloyd Security Services” and was only overshadowed by Representative Cori Bush (D-MO), who spent $64,141.26 on private security between July and late September.
Bush’s campaign sent payments to Peace Security, RS&T Security Consulting, Aegis Logistics, Whole Armor Executive Protection & Security, and Nathaniel Davis at the same address as her campaign headquarters.
In an interview with CBS News in August, Bush defended her actions while also advocating for an end to police funding:
“I’m going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life. And I have too much work to do. There are too many people who need help right now for me to allow that. So If I end up spending $200,000 — if I spend ten more dollars on it, you know what? I get to be here to do the work. So suck it up. And defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money and put that money into social safety nets.”
This can't be real. https://t.co/lyECX47Bcm
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) August 5, 2021
The New York Post noted that Bush “who often wears a Black Lives Matter or a ‘Y’All Gone Stop Killing Us!’ t-shirt, says she believes defunding the police would prevent the deaths of people like Michael Brown and Breonna Taylor.”
In a statement released on June 30, 2020, Ocasio-Cortez wrote:
“Defunding police means defunding police. 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.”
Pressley and fellow Squad member Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced a bill days later that would severely cut federal funding for police departments.
The BREATHE Act, which the representative introduced on July 6, would have also launched a reparations program for African Americans and those deemed to have been harmed by the criminal justice system. The bill sought to end federal programs and agencies used to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We can start to envision through this bill a new version for public safety — a new vision for public safety, one that protects and affirms black lives,” Tlaib said at the time.
