There must be mandated background checks for congressional staff, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily, discussing her House resolution which would require it.
“I think background checks should be mandated for congressional staff. And call me crazy, but I also think that they should be required to disclose any dual citizenship that they have, and if they have worked for any organizations or foreign governments, and if those organizations took foreign money, then we should know about it,” Cammack said, describing the need for House Resolution 500.
Cammack acknowledged that people are typically shocked to find out this is not already required.
“This is one of those moments where people they’re a little bit gobsmacked. Every single member that I have spoken to has said, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t do this already?’ And I said, ‘You don’t do background checks on your team,’ and they said, ‘No, I thought that this just happened automatically,’” she explained.
“You can imagine that there’s been a number of really difficult conversations had because, I mean, heck, even the State Department this week, they published a report detailing foreign interference on Capitol Hill and in government institutions, from spies that are placed in people’s offices to activists that are funded by these radical leftist organizations that then get put into offices,” she said, noting that CAIR, a pro-Islamic institution, has an intern program working to put people in offices as interns, “and then they get hired as junior staff, and they work their way up through the ranks.”
“Remember, CAIR is funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and all of these people are getting to Capitol Hill with not a single background check,” the congresswoman said. “So there’s an assumption of, ‘Oh, well, you worked in this congressional office, you must be ok,’ and it’s not ok,” she added. “So we know that this is a real problem.”
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Cammack said the background check would be “criminal at its most basic level” and require the individuals to disclose foreign ties.
“They would have to go through and check all former employment, and so this would cross-reference a couple of different agencies and entities, which — it’s not as extensive as the background check that you would do, say, if you were getting your clearance, which I think it’s important that people know because I’ve gotten a lot of outreach from folks like, ‘Oh my God, all these people have clearances and they haven’t had a background check,’” she said, noting that only two members of staff can have a background check or a security clearance, “and they go through the extensive normal vetting process.”
“But the remainder of your team is just — it’s a total free-for-all,” she said, hoping that these background checks would help catch bad actors, like sexual predators.
“We have a real sexual misconduct issue on Capitol Hill with a lot of creepy people doing creepy stuff, and you could have people on your staff that have stalking in their record, harassment, assault, battery, theft. I mean, you wouldn’t know unless you ran background checks,” she said, adding, “And so, again, you have to have a background check to work at a gas station, to work at a grocery store, to volunteer at your church.”
She added, “Like you said, to coach your daughter’s soccer team, you have to have a background check. I mean, this is absolute insanity that this has not been in place.”
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