Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) gave a tour of the Capitol to truckers from the “People’s Convoy,” last week even though the building was mostly closed to the public, Politico reports.
A senior congressional aide reported the tour to the Department of Justice out of concern that it could allow the truckers to organize a way into the building. The staffer reportedly overheard a Capitol Hill police officer complain about the truckers being allowed in the Capitol.
According to Politico, the Capitol has been closed to public tours since the COVID outbreak in 2020. However, since December the Senate has been allowed to give small public tours in a limited area on the Senate side, with a limit of two tours per week.
Marshall defended his actions in a statement writing: “Who would have known that taking a friendly group of hard-working American truckers, including Kansans, on a public tour of their nation’s Capitol building would cause such a stir. Let’s not forget, these are the essential workers who showed up to work every day in the earliest months of the pandemic to deliver goods and food to Americans.”
He continued: “Now senior congressional aides feel the need to report a Senator giving these same people a tour of the United States Capitol to the Department of Justice? Hard-working Kansans — especially those who have driven over 1,000 miles to get to D.C. — deserve access to their U.S. Capitol.”
The convoy has been driving around the Beltway but a few truckers managed to make their way into Washington D.C.
“Today we’re getting right next to their walls,” Mike Landis, a People’s Convoy co-organizer said, according to the Washington Post. “We’re not going to go in and throat-punch them just yet, even though I know we would all love to do that.”
The truckers have been protesting vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions. The convoy organizers say they will continue to protest until all coronavirus-related mandates have been lifted. Every state has either lifted or announced plans to lift pandemic restrictions. Additionally, the Supreme Court struck down OSHA’s vaccine mandate for companies employing more than 100 people.
So, no one knows what the truckers actually hope to accomplish by their actions.
