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—Footage shows a Capitol Police officer directing someone to interrupt a children’s choir singing the national anthem in the U.S. Capitol, yet the police claimed that they did not stop the singing.
The man who conducted the choir that day tells The Daily Signal that the Capitol Police’s claim is an outright lie.
“I was shocked, I was dismayed, I was stunned,” David Rasbach, the founder and director of the Rushingbrook Children’s Choir, told The Daily Signal of the incident, which took place on Friday, May 26. “I couldn’t believe that was happening, that they would stop the national anthem of all songs.”
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Rasbach spoke with The Daily Signal on Friday, June 2, describing the events of one week back. He said that he had secured permission from three congressional offices for the choir to sing in the Capitol. He said South Carolina Republican Reps. William Timmons and Joe Wilson had provided documents giving permission, as had the office of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Micah Rea, founder and principal of The Rea Group and organizer of the trip, told The Daily Signal that a Wilson staffer called McCarthy’s office, confirming that the choir had permission to sing. Nonetheless, the Capitol Police interrupted the performance.
Shortly before the choir started singing the national anthem, Andrew Tremel, the visitor operations manager at the Architect of the Capitol, temporarily stopped them from singing. When Rea told Tremel that congressional offices had granted permission, Tremel talked in his earpiece and told the choir they could start singing.
The children’s choir, based in Greenville, South Carolina, had toured Williamsburg, Virginia, before coming to Washington, D.C., to tour key historical and governmental sites. The pinnacle of the trip would be a performance in National Statuary Hall. Rasbach told The Daily Signal that the choir planned to sing five songs: “The Star-Spangled Banner”; “America the Beautiful”; “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”; “I Bought Me a Cat” by Aaron Copland; and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”
Video of the event shows the choir singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but it also shows Rasbach, the conductor, cut the singers off before they could finish the fourth verse of the song.
