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- A Capitol Police officer appeared to have a copy of the Protocols of Elders of Zion at a checkpoint.
- A concerned congressional aide snapped a photo, and the officer is being investigated.
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A Capitol Police officer was suspended on Monday after a Capitol Hill staffer photographed a printed copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion at a security checkpoint inside Congress, according to The Washington Post.
A congressional aide spotted the infamous anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the desk near a checkpoint, photographed the document and shared it with The Post. The checkpoint was near a 24-hour entrance of the Longworth House Office Building.
Acting Capitol Police chief Yogananda Pittman told The Post that the relevant officer was suspended pending an investigation.
"We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously," Pittman said. "Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate."
The House staff member who shared the photograph requested anonymity from The Post for fear of reprisal and said they were "extremely rattled" upon discovering the document out in the open.
According to the report, a date stamp on the document showed that it was printed in January 2019.
The staffer told The Post that in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, where rioters were photographed wearing and holding anti-Semitic imagery, they felt compelled to report what they saw.
In February, Capitol Police announced that they were investigating 35 officers for actions related to the insurrection, and six were suspended.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a centuries-old conspiracy theory targeting Jewish people born in Imperial Russia and claims to detail a meeting of all-powerful Jewish elders who create a plan for world control.
The text, though fraudulent, was a centerpiece to anti-Semitic ideology in Nazi Germany and has been routinely advanced by white-supremacist groups in the US since the 1920s, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
According to The Post, the Capitol Police officer's copy of the Elders of Zion appeared to be sourced from a far-right and anti-Semitic Australian website called the Bible Believers Church.