This came out last week, but one of the leading and loudest voices calling for more gun control is getting increased scrutiny after she spent nearly $1 million on private security for herself, all while calling for law-abiding citizens to lose their rights and proclaiming avowed support for the “defund the police” movement.

U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) confirmed to media that she is now facing criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the House of Representatives Ethics Committee all pertaining to the second-term congresswoman’s alleged misuse of campaign funds to pay for private security services.

“I also believe in transparency which is why I can confirm that the Department of Justice is reviewing my campaign’s spending on security services,” Rep. Bush said after the new investigations were announced.

Rep. Bush is the latest – and possibly the most hypocritical – example of “Rights for me, not for thee.” Her gun control activism pushes restrictions on law-abiding Americans and severely limits their ability to protect themselves. In the same breath, she’ll casually explain away why she pays exorbitant amounts for private protection.

“So Suck it Up”

Rep. Bush was first elected to Congress in 2021 in a St. Louis-based congressional district and has supported gun control efforts in Congress whenever she’s given a chance. That’s earned her the endorsement of Everytown for Gun Safety, which makes perfect sense. She’s also one of the biggest proponents of the “defund the police” movement in Congress. She’s remained steadfast in her disdain for the police even after facing backlash for those sentiments in her own party.

“I always tell [fellow Democrats], ‘If you all had fixed this before I got here, I wouldn’t have to say these things,’” Rep. Bush said.

More recently, when asked about claims that the congresswoman was spending campaign funds on a private security detail while also calling for law enforcement to be defunded, Rep. Bush sounded familiar.

“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 told media in 2022. “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. So, suck it up, and defunding the police has to happen.”

The DOJ investigation centers on allegations of how Rep. Bush paid for private security services, including paying her now-husband more than $120,000 over two years from campaign coffers. That individual, according to media, hasn’t even held a lawful “private security license” to operate in Missouri since 2012.

Back home in St. Louis, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Tracy spoke about the crime surge plaguing the city. St. Louis has recorded 20 murders so far in 2024, compared to 11 at this time last year, and is currently understaffed with 334 vacancies with only 24 new recruits in the police academy right now.

Familiar Hypocrisy

If Rep. Bush’s comments about why she’s deserving of private security and other Americans are not sounds familiar, it’s because they’ve been spoken before.

Everytown for Gun Safety – which has endorsed Rep. Bush for re-election due to her support of their gun control agenda – was founded and is funded by billionaire and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. During his failed 2020 presidential bid, Bloomberg participated in a Fox News Town Hall and his Second Amendment hypocrisy was on full display.

The former New York City mayor fielded an audience question regarding his strict gun control platform while he relies on paid private protection. The question was as stunning as it was simple. “Does your life matter more than mine, or my family’s or these people’s?”

Bloomberg dismissively responded, “Alright, look… I probably get forty or fifty threats every week…That just happens when you’re the mayor of New York City, or very wealthy, or campaigning for the president of the United States. You’re gonna get lots of threats.”

This hypocritical and familiar line of belief should enrage constituents back in Rep. Bush’s district in St. Louis. Not only must they live with threats of criminal violence every day and a severely limited police presence to provide protection, but they also have far fewer options for self-defense due to the gun control efforts by anti-Second Amendment activists like Michael Bloomberg and Congresswoman Bush.

Reckless Representation

The new investigations by DOJ, FEC and House Ethics are at their most basic about campaign finance violations – they aren’t particularly about the Second Amendment. However, a couple of points are worth highlighting about Rep. Bush’s track record and how that voting record affects her voters.

Black women are among the fastest growing demographics for new gun owners in the country over the past three years. That data comes from NSSF retailer survey data, from the National African American Gun Association and other media reporting, including The Cut, which reported “The New Face of American Gun Ownership: Black women are pushing against the (white, rural, and male) stereotype.”

Rep. Bush has a track record of making it more difficult for those law-abiding African American women in her congressional district to obtain a legal firearm. She has supported implementing waiting periods on firearm purchases, expanding background check requirements beyond what is already required by the FBI’s National Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification process and supports banning the most commonly-owned semiautomatic rifle (Modern Sporting Rifle) available for those constituents to purchase. NSSF data shows there are more than 28 million in private circulation since 1990 and plenty of media reports demonstrate their popularity among Black women who choose the popular firearm for self-defense purposes.

As more details of the DOJ investigation into Rep. Bush’s use of campaign funds to pay for private security come to light, voters will continue to be reminded that the congresswoman believes her personal safety and security is more important than their own and she continues to vote against them. The hypocrisy is a disgusting theme that is all too familiar among some of gun control’s most vocal supporters.

—Matt Manda, NSSF

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27 COMMENTS

  1. “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,”

    Wow… I guess maybe thanks for validating my firearms ownership, posession, and carry.

    I also am “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”. But I can’t afford private security so I do it my self by being armed, and its worked out pretty well too in saving my wife’s life and mine and another. And Cori, it was saving those lives from the violent actions of the types of criminals you let roam free.

    • Why don’t snot nose gun talking brats post their gripes about POTUS DJT on articles such as this? They can’t because they know when push comes to shove there is no comparison between POTUS DJT and the antics of Gun Control hungry democRats.

      Bottom line…If you want to feed your family you stfu and hunt with the dog you have.

      TRUMP 2024.

      • Gee, Debbie Dimwit, I guess us peons DARING to criticize the “great” Donald Trump really go under your skin, dinnit?? I’ll criticize any politician I feel like criticizing, any time I wish to (at least until MajorLiar and his fellow Leftist/fascists succeed in making criticism of “rightthink” a hate crime). Yes, I will probably vote for Trump, but it is DEFINITELY the “lesser of two evils” – sorta like the difference between dying from a heart attack and dying of lingering liver cancer, eh? Both suck, but at least the heart attack will be over quicker.

        Don’t like me criticizing your hero? Sorry, not sorry. If Xiao Bai-den weren’t such a COMPLETE cluster-fisk, I’d write in Bullwinkle J. Moose. But if you have a problem with me criticizing your hero, you are cordially invited to hie thyself off to the theological place of eternal punishment.

        Thanks! Nice chat!

  2. “U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) confirmed to media that she is now facing criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ),…”

    And, who currently ‘pulls the strings’ controlling what the Department of Justice (DOJ) does?

    Don’t get your hopes up they will do the right thing, gang… 🙁

    • Insert slap on the wrist sound effect here.

      Not like it will matter, she’s probably in an area that will elect another leftist just like her.

      • Andrew,

        Or, more likely, just re-elect her – she checks many of the “right boxes” for the Leftist/fascist crowd. Just look at how long we’ve been sending that dessicated, brainless, racist, Maxine Waters back to DC.

    • Why is this news? Every one knows he lied about his drug use at the time of purchase. This is perjury but it will likely be considered an ancillary charges if they can get any of the financial crimes to stick.

      • Its news because the DOJ is actually presenting ‘evidence’ instead of dragging their feet like they have been, from the lap top they said before that no such pictures existed on and was russian disinformation.

  9. There are Republicans that have millions spent on them for private security including the Far Right Nut Cases on the Supreme Court but I do not hear from the Far Right that they are spending money. What hypocrites.

    • Umm, the Republicans are pro-gun and typically pro-police, just the opposite of Ms. Bush and Emperor Bloomberg. Republicans are seeking to knock down barriers to gun ownership and a right to bear arms in public. And if they have security, they are paying out of pocket, not out of campaign funds. Where exactly s the hypocrisy?

      • .40 cal,

        “dacian doesn’t understand.”

        There, FIFY – as Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote in his rules for prose writing: “Eschew surplusage”. If dacian EVER understood a single subject that we discuss on this forum, he’s sure done a hell of a job hiding it!

  10. Neighbors Say Police Ignored Their Warnings for Years About the Lakewood Church Shooter > https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/2024/02/14/neighbors-say-police-ignored-their-warnings-for-years-about-the-lakewood-church-shooter/

    “[Genesse] Moreno – who was originally from El Salvador, had a lengthy criminal record and previously used the name Jeffrey Escalante Moreno – brought the 7-year-old into the megachurch before opening fire, and the boy remains hospitalized in critical condition.

    ‘Four years I’ve been through hell. I have reported this, reported this, reported this, and it’s gone on deaf ears,” Jill told the outlet. ‘I’ve had psychological officers up here. Since they won’t answer their door, they won’t do anything: ‘Until she hurts you, there’s nothing we can do.’ So, everybody keeps saying on all these big news stations, ‘If you see something, say something.’ That’s bulls—. Because I’ve been through it. I’ve talked to everybody. I’ve probably called every one of your news stations trying to get someone to take this on.’

    ‘No one would do anything. Nobody would call me back. And yet everyone’s still on these stations saying, ‘See something, say something.’ Nobody should have died. Nobody should have been hurt. This should have been handled years ago. And here we are again,’ Jill added.

    ‘I knew it was only a matter of time before she did something,” said another neighbor, Linda Giutta. “We did something, we said something.’

    ‘We cannot do anything more than what we did. We tried to stop this. We tried to help her, we tried to help us, and we tried to help the public. Something needs to get done. I don’t know what needs to get done, but it needs to get done. This was a big church. By the grace of God, Jesus alone, the only person that died was the one who brought the weapon in.”

    (my note: 91% of mass shooters have warned others, including mental health professionals, and are known to law enforcement, about their mental health illness desire to conduct their heinous act at least six months prior to conducting their shootings, and have warned others, including mental health professional, up to several times in the two weeks prior their heinous act.)

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