Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the St. Louis city attorney's actions relating to a couple being investigating over their brandishing of firearms during a street protest.
Police executed a search warrant on the house of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who stood in front of their house with a rifle and handgun as a Black Lives Matter protest march was happening through their private street.
St. Louis city attorney Kimberly Gardner, in a statement days after the incident, said her office and the St. Louis Police Department would be conducting an investigation into the displaying of firearms.
"This morning I have asked the Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the St Louis Circuit Attorneys Office. Targeting law abiding citizens who exercise constitutionally protected rights for investigation & prosecution is an abuse of power," Sen. Josh Hawley wrote in a tweet.
In an interview Sunday, Mark McCloskey said he did not know details about any criminal investigation.
"I don't know the details of the criminal aspect of this, although I think there is no criminal aspect of this," McCloskey said during an appearance on Fox News' "Watters' World." Prior to interviewing McCloskey, the host, Jesse Waters, described Gardner as a "total radical zealot."
McCloskey told the program: "I think under the technicalities of Missouri law, in order to trump up whatever the attorneys are going to have against us, we have to test-fire the weapon or make sure that it's the gun and credibly capable of being lethal."
McCloskey claimed that the police executing the warrant to search the house were "embarrassed."
Following a search of the house in Portland Place, police took the rifle that McCloskey was holding during the incident, images of which were widely circulated.
In the interview Sunday, McCloskey said he was surprised to see his wife come out of the house with a hand gun.
He said, "I was surprised to see her facing off the crowd. I grabbed my rifle and I was standing on the porch and all of a sudden I see her in the front yard with that pistol in her hand."
Fox News, in its online report based on the interview, claimed that McCloskey said, "I was always surprised to see her out there facing off [the] welfare crowd."
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson told a St. Louis radio station that if the couple are charged for brandishing their guns at the crowd then a pardon would be likely.
Parson told 97.1 FM in St. Louis Friday he thinks a pardon “is exactly what would happen.”