Francisco Canseco Claims TSA Assaulted Him

Rep. Francisco Canseco (R-Texas) and a TSA agent got into a scuffle over whether a recent security screening went too far, according to KENS 5, a San Antonio CBS affiliate.

"The agent was very aggressive in his pat-down, and he was patting me down where no one is supposed to go,” said Canseco. “It got very uncomfortable so I moved his hand away. That stopped everything and brought in supervisors and everyone else."

Canseco, a freshman Republican who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, told KENS 5 that the agent and he both claimed they were assaulted during the exchange. An aide to the congressman told Politico that no citations were issued.

A week later, Canseco was back at the San Antonio International Airport and again there was discussion with the TSA, followed by a pat-down, but no assault charges this time.

Canseco is not the first Republican congressman to run into trouble at security checkpoints. In January, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that the TSA detained him in Nashville after he refused to be patted down. The TSA said that Paul was not detained, but police escorted him out of the screening area when he refused to cooperate. He missed his flight and dad Ron started a fundraising campaign to "end the TSA."

"As President, I pledge to do everything in my power to strengthen our national security by ending the theatrical sham that is the TSA," he wrote in a letter to supporters.

UPDATE: Canseco emailed HuffPost a comment on the TSA:

“The American people expect and deserve to be safe and secure from the threat of terrorism when they board a commercial aircraft. However, I believe that TSA has become an agency without restraint, and its overzealous policies threaten people’s personal dignity and freedom. There are other ways of securing airways from terrorists without forcing people to make such sacrifices, which I believe we in Congress should look into.”