Jan. 6 committee releases video of pro-Trump congressman giving a tour of the Capitol the day before the insurrection
The Jan. 6 committee released video of a pro-Trump congressman’s tour of the Capitol complex the day before the violent attack — and demanded answers from the lawmaker on Wednesday.
“We understand you led a tour group through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021. That group stayed for several hours, despite the complex being closed to the public on that day,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a letter to Loudermilk.
The footage depicts the group led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) taking pictures and videos of stairways, security posts and tunnels, all areas “not typically of interest to tourists,” according to the panel.
Loudermilk first denied giving any tour of the Capitol complex on Jan. 5. He later admitted to giving the tour but denied any wrongdoing.
The Georgia Republican said in a statement that there is “nothing there” and noted that none of the locations they visited were breached on Jan. 6.
“This false narrative that the Committee and Democrats continue to push, that Republicans, including myself, led reconnaissance tours is verifiably false,” Loudermilk said.
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police said in a letter to Republicans this week that after reviewing the surveillance video, “we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.”
One of the tour participants was shown outside the Capitol on the day of the riot making wild threats against Democratic lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N .Y.), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
“There’s no escape. Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. We’re coming for ya,” the unnamed man says on the tape. “We’re coming in like white on rice... Even you, AOC. We’re coming to take you out.”
Nadler called the personal attacks on him a badge of honor
“I feel honored ... because we’re defending the Constitution,” the Manhattan Democrat told the News.
“I’ve been dealing with that insane (language) since the day I was sworn in,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
The rioter is not shown inside the Capitol during the violent attack that aimed to block Congress from certifying President Biden’s election win. It’s not known if he has been investigated or charged.
The tape depicts the group led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) taking pictures and videos of stairways, security posts and tunnels, all areas “not typically of interest to tourists,” according to the panel.
Still, the committee says it has questions. In addition to the surveillance video, the footage released by the panel also includes video of an unidentified man walking toward the Capitol on Jan. 6 holding a flagpole that appears to have a sharpened end, which he says is “for a certain person.”
The committee says the man in the video is one of the tour participants who was taking photos inside the Capitol complex with Loudermilk the day before.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) listens to a speaker at a press conference in Marietta, Ga. on May 4, 2021. (Ron Harris/)
Hundreds of Trump supporters broke through police barricades, shattered windows, attacked officers and stormed into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The mob spent hours marauding through the halls of Congress looking for perceived enemies like Democratic leaders and former Vice President Mike Pence before being repelled by law enforcement.
The tape depicts the group led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) snapping images and taking videos of stairways, security posts and tunnels, all areas “not typically of interest to tourists,” according to the panel.
The panel, which is led by Democrats but includes Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), kicked off its long-awaited series of public hearings last week with a blockbuster prime-time session.
It used the testimony of Trump’s own close aides and even his daughter, Ivanka Trump, to lay out the broad outlines of his scheme to stay in power after losing 2020, a plot that culminated with the Jan. 6 attack.
Its second hearing on Monday took aim at Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen from him. It starred former Attorney General Bill Barr, who ridiculed the bogus election fraud claims and said his boss became increasingly “detached from reality.”
On Thursday, the third hearing, the panel will describe Trump’s efforts to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to illegally delay the electoral count or to object to Biden’s win as he presided over the congressional certification.
In a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s Republican co-chair, said the panel will examine Trump’s “relentless effort on Jan. 6, and in the days beforehand, to pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count lawful electoral votes.”
Rep. Cheney also included a preview clip: former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann telling the committee in a video interview that he had told John Eastman, a lawyer who was working with Trump to push the false fraud claims, that he needed to “get a great effing criminal defense lawyer. You’re gonna need it.”
With News Wire Services
