As Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger retires, he's concerned about spike in threats against lawmakers

CBS News

3 days ago

As U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger retires from his post at the Capitol Friday, he says the threats facing members of Congress have accelerated — they've more than quadrupled over the past several years and remain alarmingly high.
Manger, who took charge of the department in the difficult months after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol siege, quantified the surge in threats targeting lawmakers and how the department has had to evolve to expand its protection of senators and House members.
Leaning forward in his seat to emphasize his point, Manger said, "It's a huge responsibility. We've gone from 1,000 to 2,000 threats a year to now 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 threats a year." And those threats are now reaching outside the Capitol. The department is being spread farther and wider to prevent attacks.
"The threats are coming in from all over the country. Not everybody knows it, but the Capitol Police has nationwide jurisdiction to address those threats," Manger said. "So, we are sending investigators and agents all over this country to investigate these cases."
He has helped secure large budget increases for his department to help protect the Capitol campus, its members, staffers and visitors. But the growing need to bolster security and investigations in the 50 states — including the hometowns and home offices of members of Congress — has required more funding and more staff.
Manger's budget request for 2026 is nearly $1 billion, approximately double the funding the department was given in 2021, prior to the Capitol riot. In a letter to a U.S. House subcommittee in April, Manger wrote, "I recognize there are other police departments of a similar size whose budget is not as large as ours, but we are not an ordinary law enforcement agency."
In his request, Manger also said he expected the number of threats against lawmakers to continue to rise, "given the current political climate."
The Capitol Police have aggressively recruited and set ambitious hiring goals to help bolster their protection details for members of Congress. Manger, in his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee last month, said the department is adding dozens of new positions in the unit that oversees protective details and intelligence.
He told CBS News the department was already hampered with a staffing shortage before the Jan. 6 attack and has faced hurdles in its effort to hire, due to morale issues and trauma suffered by officers after the Insurrection. Four officers who responded on Jan. 6 died by suicide within seven months of the attack. Many officers at the Capitol that day were subjected to repeated violent assaults. Manger has been urging lawmakers to support his recommended budget increase to help boost officer hiring and recruitment.
"When [lawmakers] travel, when they're at the airports, when they have congressional business to do at home," Manger said. "They've got to meet with their constituents. So, we want to make sure that they're safe."
An immediate replacement for Manger has not yet been named. The U.S. Capitol Police Board will select a successor, but he expects some lawmakers will also want to meet candidates for the position.
At an April hearing on the Capitol Police budget, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat who has oversight of the police department, said the department "does need more to keep us safe."