When Congress returns next week, lawmakers will face a $5,000 fine for bypassing newly installed metal detectors to enter the House chamber.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the fine for the second offense will be $10,000, with the fines deducted from lawmakers’ salaries, according to multiple media outlets.
The fines come after several members of Congress reportedly bypassed the detectors, which were installed after last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists.
A reporter for the Huffington Post earlier this week said he recorded a dozen lawmakers bypassing security, including Republican North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx. The reporter said Foxx continued walking through the detector after setting it off.
Foxx denied doing so. On Twitter this week, Foxx called the report “false” and said reporting on that quote “is not journalism, it’s sensationalism.”
The most charitable explanation I can offer is that she didn’t realize she set off the magnetometer.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 13, 2021
The most likely explanation I can offer is that she’s just straight up lying.
Foxx’s office wouldn’t respond to WFAE’s request for comment.
The Huffington Post also said that South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman walked around the metal detector, among a handful of other representatives.
Some Republicans have criticized the new metal detectors as unnecessary and an intrusion.
