A congressional chief of staff was caught vandalizing property within the Capitol Hill complex, but despite recommendations for criminal charges from Capitol Police, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to prosecute him.
Just The News reports that 51-year-old Timothy Hysom, the chief of staff for Congressman Jack Auchincloss (D-Mass.), was arrested by Capitol Police after he was caught on surveillance camera footage defacing posters outside the office of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in the Longworth House Office Building.
Capitol Police additionally revealed that they believe Hysom to be involved in as many as seven different incidents of posters being defaced outside Greene’s office. After his arrest, Hysom was offered a “non-custodial interview, and he declined and retained counsel.”
However, officials said that Greene’s office was informed last month that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington D.C. decided not to prosecute Hysom, apparently believing that a federal judge would not allow the case to proceed.
A spokesman for Auchincloss’s office not only confirmed Hysom’s guilt in vandalizing the posters, but even defended his actions due to the content of the posters in question, which state the scientific fact that there are only two genders, male and female.
“While Members of Congress have great latitude in what they do on the inside of their office, they do not own the exterior walls of their office,” said spokesman Matt Corridoni. “What Tim did was to adhere a series of stickers to foul, mean spirited, bullying posters outside the Congresswoman’s office. These stickers were never threatening and always respectful.”
Capitol Police also revealed that it was Auchincloss’s office that allowed seven staffers from Stephen Colbert’s late night talk show into the Capitol complex last week. Auchincloss’s office confirmed that they were responsible for checking the staffers in for an interview on Thursday; later that night, the crew was found trespassing inside the Capitol complex without authorization, and were arrested.
“The congressman had a scheduled interview with CBS, as did other members of Congress,” Corridoni said. “Our contact with them ended well before the building closed for the evening. We do not condone any inappropriate activity and cannot speak to anything that occurred after hours.”