WASHINGTON – A man who visited the Capitol complex with a Republican lawmaker the day before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack later marched on the building while threatening President Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats. said on Wednesday the House committee investigating the attack. .
The panel released a surveillance video of a tour of parts of the Capitol complex by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican from Georgia, a day before the violence. During the tour, which lasted several hours, although the complex was closed to the public at the time, he was seen with the group entering three different office buildings and approaching the entrances to the tunnels leading to the Chapters.
People on the tour photographed and recorded areas of the resort that “are not normally of interest to tourists, including corridors, stairs and security checks,” the committee said.
The video released by the committee also included images apparently taken by a person marching on the Capitol on January 6, and can be heard saying, “No escape, Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. Let’s look for you.” .
An aide to the committee said investigators had learned that the voice was that of the man seen in the surveillance footage of Mr. Tour. Loudermilk taking a photograph of a staircase in the Capitol complex.
“The behavior of these people during the January 5, 2021 tour raises concerns about their activities and intentions while they are inside the Capitol complex,” wrote Miss Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the committee. a letter to Mr. Loudermilk. , looking for a second interview.
The video comes on a charge that some Democrats launched immediately after the assault on the Capitol and that the House committee investigating it has hinted since then: that Republican members of Congress made it possible for some of the mutineers study the distribution of the complex before its violent onslaught.
Review the issues of the January 6 House Committee hearings
Capitol police have investigated the allegations and on Monday, the force released a letter in which its boss said that Mr. Loudermilk looked harmless.
“We teach our officers to be alert to surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities we observed to be suspicious,” J. Thomas Manger, the Capitol police chief, wrote in a statement. letter on Mr. Loudermilk’s tour. On Wednesday, Capitol police said they could not offer additional comments, but had “cooperated extensively” with the committee.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Loudermilk said the committee was involved in a smear campaign against him, causing his family and staff to receive death threats.
“As confirmed by the Capitol police, nothing of this visit with the voters was suspicious,” he wrote. “The pictures show children holding bags from the House gift shop, which was open to visitors, and taking pictures of the Rayburn train.”
But the committee said several people who took part in Mr. Loudermilk attended President Donald J. Trump’s demonstration at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6th.
The man in the video is heard threatening the top Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, all of New York.
“We come in like white on rice for Pelosi, Nadler, Schumer, even you, AOC,” he says as he records the pro-Trump crowd approaching the Capitol. “We’re coming to get you out and get you out of your hair.”
“When it’s over with you, you’ll need a shine on top of that bald head,” he adds.
At the beginning of the video, he walks next to a second man carrying a flagpole with a sharp end and says, “It’s for a certain person,” as he makes a punching move.
They did not directly claim that anyone that Mr. Loudermilk would later have attacked the Capitol. But they suggested they had evidence that he had led visitors through the resort. They wrote that their review contradicted Republican denials that closed-circuit security camera images showed that such visits had not been made.
The head of administration said Capitol police had reviewed surveillance images of the complex on Jan. 5 and observed Mr. Loudermilk led a visit of about 15 people, who visited the Rayburn House office building and the Cannon House office building.
His letter described the tour as a “voter visit” and noted that the group did not enter the Capitol or its tunnel system.
Visits to the Capitol were limited at the time due to pandemic restrictions.
In a statement last month, Mr. Loudermilk admitted that he had taken voters to parts of the Capitol complex, though not to the Capitol itself, the day before the riots, but said the visit was harmless.
“A constituent family with young children who meet with their member of Congress in the office buildings of the House is not a suspicious group or a‘ reconnaissance tour ’,” Mr wrote. Loudermilk, added: “No place was entered where the family went on the 5th. On the 6th, the family did not enter the Capitol grounds on the 6th, and no one from this family has been investigated or charged. in relation to January 6 “.
Shortly after the riots, more than 30 Democrats joined New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill in requesting an investigation by top Capitol security officials and Capitol police into what Ms. Sherrill called the “suspicious behavior” and access given to visitors to the Capitol complex. day before the riot.
Ms. Sherrill said she knew members of Congress who had made “reconnaissance” visits before the attack. Republicans vehemently denied the allegations.
Mr. Loudermilk, in particular, denounced the charges and joined a denunciation of ethics against the Democrats who made them.