Several Republican Hill offices received American flags bearing “obscured” swastika symbols, Rep. Dave Taylor said a day after an image surfaced of one hanging in his office.
Taylor, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement Thursday that it was part of an orchestrated campaign.
“Numerous Republican offices have confirmed that they were targeted by an unidentified group or individual who distributed American flags bearing a similar symbol, which were initially indistinguishable from an ordinary American flag to the naked eye,” he said. “My office was among those that were subjected to this ruse.”
In February, similar flags were delivered via the United States Postal Service “to multiple congressional offices,” a GOP Hill staffer, not from Taylor’s office, told POLITICO. An image obtained by POLITICO of one of those flags appears to be similar to the one displayed in Taylor’s office, showing a U.S. flag apparently altered with a red marker and whiteout to form the shape of a swastika.
But the Hill aide — granted anonymity to speak openly — said that flag was “obvious and unusual enough for us to take a photo before throwing it out.”
“It was plainly obvious to us that there was a swastika on the flag with the naked eye,” the staffer said. There was no investigation, and the flag was thrown away, “like we would hate mail,” the staffer said.
A different Hill staffer noticed the flag in Taylor’s office within moments of logging onto a virtual call on Tuesday, which POLITICO corroborated through screenshots of the call and a call log. Angelo Elia, the legislative aide who sat in front of the flag during the call, seemed unbothered and never acknowledged it, the second Hill staffer said.
That staffer — who does not work in Taylor’s office, and who was granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly — was shocked, he told POLITICO. He took a photo and sent it to a friend. POLITICO published the image Wednesday.
By the following afternoon, the image went viral, appearing on the homepage of news outlets around the world. At the time, Taylor said he called the U.S. Capitol Police to investigate, and a spokesperson said Taylor believed it was an act of “vandalism.”
Taylor’s office has not responded to multiple requests as to whether the lawmaker ever saw the flag and whether Elia is still employed by the office. The Capitol Police sent a generic response saying its public information office “will re-open when the federal government is funded.”
“After a full-scale internal investigation, I am confident that no employee of this office would knowingly display such a despicable image, and the flag in question was taken down immediately upon the discovery of the obscured symbol it bore,” Taylor said in a statement. “As I’ve said previously, I unequivocally condemn hate in any form and continue to collaborate with Capitol Police and the Committee on House Administration to uncover additional details in this investigation.”
It is unclear how the flag in Taylor’s office came to be displayed, how long it was there, and why Elia seemed unaware of it during a video call.
“It was clearly behind him, on the screen,” the Hill staffer on the call said.
The idea that Taylor never saw the flag in his office is “plausible,” but it is “not at all plausible that every other staffer had no clue that flag was there,” said Eric Schmeltzer, a Democratic consultant and former press secretary for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).
“Everyone sees how everyone else has their area decorated (in a Hill office),” Schmeltzer said.
Elia, the Taylor staffer who sat in front of the flag, has worked as a legislative correspondent on the Hill since January, according to LinkedIn. Local news reports said he was involved in Democratic organizations during his time at Youngstown State University. In 2020, he was elected treasurer of the university’s College Democrats chapter; by 2022, he was president. He also participated in Mahoning County Young Democrats, The Vindicator reported.
He has not responded to messages about the incident.
