Rep. Cori Bush spent $500K in campaign cash on security while calling to defund the police

A Democratic member of Congress who still supports the “Defund the Police” movement has spent nearly $500,000 in campaign funds on private security, according to a report Sunday.

Federal Election Commission records show that US Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a former Black Lives Matter activist, shelled out more than $100,000 for “security services” during the third quarter of 2022, Fox News said.

The spending pushed Bush’s campaign outlays on private security during the 2020-22 election cycle to more than $490,000, according to the outlet.

The security payments were first reported in July 2021 by Fox News Digital, and during an interview with CBS News that August, Bush — a member of the progressive group of progressive Democratic house members known as “The Squad” — vehemently defended the spending.

“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,” she said.

“So, if I end up spending 200,000, if I spend… 10 more dollars on it, you know what? I get to be here to do the work.”

Bush added: “So, suck it up, and defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets because we’re trying to save lives.”

It was later revealed that two St. Louis sheriff’s deputies who moonlighted as bodyguards for Bush had been fired for failing to get permission to take the jobs.

Bush — one of the few Democrats who still publicly support the “Defund” movement — doubled down on her stance during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier this month, when she was asked if it could hurt her party in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

“We can’t get caught up on the words,” she said.

“People spend more time focusing on the word ‘defund’ than they spend on caring and addressing the problem of police violence in this country.”

The “Defund” movement gained steam following the infamous 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but then-President-elect Joe Biden later blamed it for helping Republican critics “beat the living hell” out of Democrats that fall.

Biden also got a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle during his first State of the Union speech when he said, “We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police, the answer is to fund the police.”