Capitol Police raises questions with job listing to hire own federal prosecutors: ‘Who signed off on this?’

A new listing on a federal government job board is raising constitutional questions, as Capitol Police are looking to hire their own prosecutors.

The listing for an attorney position, posted July 29 on USAJobs.gov, says in the description that the employee would “serve as a Special Assistant United States Attorney” in the Capitol Police’s District Offices. The salary is between $145,094 and $186,368 per year.

“This position is to represent the United States Government primarily prosecuting individuals and/or groups who have engaged in threats and/or acts of violence against Members of Congress, their staffs, United States Capitol Police employees, visitors to the Capitol complex, and facilities and properties within the Capitol Complex,” the listing says.

Notably, the agency listed for the prosecutor’s job is the Capitol Police, not the Department of Justice. Therein lies the problem, according to Mike Davis, founder of the Article 3 Project.

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“It is constitutionally wrong to have prosecutors report to law enforcement. It should be the other way around,” Davis said.

Posing a greater problem, Davis said, is that the leadership of the Capitol Police is a three-person board that includes the House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms — who are nominated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“This is clearly unconstitutional to have federal prosecutors working for Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in Congress,” Davis said, since prosecution falls under the Executive Branch, not Congress. He also noted how special prosecutors often have a tremendous amount of autonomy.

“They’re going to be able to do whatever they hell they want,” Davis said.

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To that end, Davis claimed that these attorneys will essentially be “Pelosi and Schumer’s hand-picked federal prosecutors doing their bidding.” Such an arrangement, he said, where lawmakers have their own prosecutors, “leads to tyranny.”

The whole situation led Davis to raise the question of how this came about in the first place.

“Who signed off on this?” he asked, questioning whether Attorney General Merrick Garland himself approved it.

A Capitol Police spokesperson told the Daily Wire that the idea did not come from any member of Congress, but Davis is skeptical. He said it is “not believable that Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Schumer did not have their hands in this,” even if it was through their respective sergeants-at-arms.

Fox News reached out to the Justice Department and the offices of Pelosi and Schumer for more information, but none immediately responded.

Davis also pointed out the short time frame for the job listing, which is from July 29 to Aug. 19. He said this typically means that the people in charge already know who they want to pick.

The listing says that the position reports to the Capitol Police Deputy and General Counsel, but will also be “under the direct supervision and authority of the co-located District U.S. Attorney’s Office.” 

That dual reporting system, Davis predicted, is not going to be how things operate on the ground. He believes that ultimately the prosecutors will be controlled by the Capitol Police — and as a result, the congressional leaders who control them. 

Davis said the stated dual reporting is merely an attempt to work around the legal problems that he is certain will present themselves.

“This is going to put every prosecution by this unconstitutional army of legislative prosecutors in constitutional jeopardy in the federal courts,” he warned.