(Washington, DC) Police charged with protecting the US Capitol and the politicians and their staffers who work there say they are investigating numerous reports of missing spines that came in on the occasion of the first anniversary of the attack.

“These spines were all present and correct in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol Riot in January of last year, so something must have happened to them.”

All available officers will be working the massive caseload, though they do hope some of the spines find their own way home. The shear volume of missing spines requires that they prioritize those deemed most at risk.

“We are particularly fearful for Senator Graham’s and Senator Cruz’s backbones.”

While Senator Graham’s spine has been missing for so long now it is officially considered a cold case, investigators say there was strong evidence that Cruz’s spine was alive and well as recently as Thursday afternoon when he made a speech on the Senate floor denouncing the riot as a terrorist act.

“It appeared his vertebral column was safe inside his body at that point.”

Yet by the time he appeared on the Tucker Carlson show that evening, Cruz’s spine was nowhere to be found despite Carlson’s multiple attempts to locate it.

“Sadly we may never see that spine again.”

However, they are not concerned about the Republican leadership based on all the available evidence.

“Given that Senator McConnell and Representative Kevin McCarthy were entirely absent from the Capitol on the one-year anniversary of the attack, we are confident they never had any spines to go missing in the first place.”