Fox Scandal: First Time State House Raided in RI History
Saturday, March 22, 2014
It was a dark day in Rhode Island's history as the State House was raided by federal and state law enforcement officials for the very first time.
On Friday, a contingent of dozens of State Police officers, as well as Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service officers swept into the iconic Rhode Island Capitol to raid files of the Speaker of the House - Gordon Fox.
First State House Raid
"I've been around 27 years. We've arrested people at the State House, but I can't remember something like this before," said Rhode Island State Police Colonel Steve O’Donnell.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTState Librarian Tom Evans, who has been working at the State House for 26 years, affirmed, “State policemen have only been in the State House to interview for investigations and such in the past, not to raid an office.”
The state police have only ever been called to the State House on one occasion, which was during the Bloodless Revolution on New Year’s Day of 1935. In what remains one of the most significant power transfers in history, Governor Theodore Francis Green led the Democratic Party in seizing the Senate from Republicans. Green called in 20 state troopers to guard the doors of the Senate chamber so that no Republicans would be able to escape and leave the Democrats with a quorum – which is the minimum number of members in a deliberative assembly necessary to conduct business.
According to Dr. Patrick Conley, an expert on Rhode Island history, "There's no record of the state - or certainly the federal - authorities invading the State House."
GOP, Dems Battled in Past
Back in the 1920's there was the use of State Police in the State House during a political battle between Republicans and Democrats.
“The irony of it all is that the Republicans used force to keep the Democrats in check only about ten years before then,” said Dr. Conley, the Historian Laureate of Rhode Island. Republicans dropped a bromine gas bomb in the middle of a Democratic filibuster on June 19, 1924. No state police department existed at this point, so Lieutenant Governor Felix Toupin involved the Attorney General to order an issue of arrest for the Republicans who refused to show up and resume session after the gas had cleared.
In the events leading up to June 19, 1924, Toupin had not left the rostrum for 48 consecutive hours, having had food brought to him from restaurants and a device installed near his seat so that he could answer calls without ever moving from his chair.
The political battle of the 1920's and 1930'a stands in stark contrast to the investigation of political corruption on 2014 demonstrated this week by federal investigators. "I'm not going to offer any comment at all, but to confirm the obvious, that there is a federal and state law enforcement presence at the State House in an ongoing law enforcement matter," said Jim Martin with the US Attorney's Office in Providence.
The raid of Speaker Fox office seems to set a new standard for both federal and state law enforcement reacting to Rhode Island political corruption.
Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption
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