Multiple GOP congressional offices earlier this year received an American flag with an “optical illusion” swastika embedded in it, two Republican sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
The news comes one day after Ohio GOP Rep. Dave Taylor called the flag with the swastika “vile” and “deeply inappropriate“ after the symbol was seen in one of his staffers’ offices in the background of a meeting.
One of the sources, whose office received a flag back in January, said it was initially difficult to see the flag’s swastika with the naked eye, calling it an “optical illusion.” But once they discovered the swastika in the center of the flag, they threw it out, the source said.
The matter is also now being investigated by the GOP-led House Administration Committee, in addition to the United States Capitol Police.
The USCP did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
It’s unclear who handed out the flags to the congressional offices and what the intent was, but that is part of what is being investigated.
On Wednesday, Taylor denounced the symbol, saying in a statement, “I condemn it in the strongest terms.”
The symbol is one historically associated with Nazis, but has been used in the U.S. in recent years by neo-Nazi groups promoting hateful rhetoric and violence against Jews and other minority groups.
In 2021, a swastika was found to be carved in an elevator in the State Department. Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in an email to staffers in the agency at the time that the incident “painfully reminds us, anti-Semitism isn’t a relic of the past.”
“It’s still a force in the world, including close to home. And it’s abhorrent. It has no place in the United States, at the State Department, or anywhere else. And we must be relentless in standing up and rejecting it,” he added in the email.
Earlier this year, outside of Cincinnati, police responded to reports of demonstrators dressed in all black clothing displaying swastikas on an overpass.
The demonstrators left the area after they were confronted by local residents.
Frank Thorp V contributed.