House Democrats are doubling down on claims that lawmakers may have led reconnaissance tours before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, citing newly released footage of Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) giving a tour the day before the riot to a man who took photos of Capitol complex hallways before attending the rally the next day.
“With what that person had been looking for, the pictures he was taking, and then certainly what he did the next day, it certainly seems as if he was preparing for Jan. 6,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat representing New Jersey who first sounded the alarm about “suspicious behavior” from visitors at the Capitol complex in the days before the riot, told reporters on Wednesday.
The footage, released Wednesday morning by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, depicts Loudermilk giving a tour to a group of people on Jan. 5 — including a man who can be seen taking photos of hallways and staircases in the Capitol complex.
The clip from the congressional panel also features footage of the same man marching to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatening a number of Democratic lawmakers.
“There’s no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. We’re coming for you. We’re coming in like white on rice, for Pelosi, Nadler, Schumer, even you AOC. We’re coming to take you out, and pull you out by your hairs,” the unarmed man says in the video, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
The committee released the video in renewing its request for information from Loudermilk regarding the tour he gave. The congressman was first approached by the panel for information last month.
Sherrill, along with 33 other lawmakers, penned a letter to the House and Senate sergeant at arms a week after the Jan. 6 riot asking for an investigation into “suspicious behavior and access given to visitors to the Capitol Complex” on Jan. 5. The lawmakers said some of the visitors “appeared to be associated with” the rally that migrated to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“Members of the group that attacked the Capitol seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the layout of the Capitol Complex. The presence of these groups within the Capitol Complex was indeed suspicious. Given the events of January 6, the ties between these groups inside the Capitol Complex and the attacks on the Capitol need to be investigated,” the letter reads.
Sherrill would not confirm on Wednesday if she was referring to Loudermilk’s tour in the letter.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, however, has since shot down speculation that suspicious activity took place at the Capitol the day before the riot, writing in a letter on Monday that authorities did not perceive any questionable activity during the Loudermilk tour.
“We train our officers on being alert for people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious,” Manger wrote to Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), the ranking member of the House Administration Committee.
Loudermilk’s office cited that letter on Wednesday, arguing that the statement “already put this false accusation to bed.”
“This false narrative that the Committee and Democrats continue to push, that Republicans, including myself, led reconnaissance tours is verifiably false. No where that I went with the visitors in the House Office Buildings on Jan. 5 were breached on Jan. 6; and, to my knowledge, no one in that group was criminally charged in relation to January 6th,” Loudermilk said.
But the release of the video by the Jan. 6 committee on Wednesday is prompting some Democratic lawmakers to re-up claims that reconnaissance tours may have taken place at the Capitol prior to the riot.
“The smoke is starting to clear. And to see this evidence it’s just so obvious that these were, indeed, reconnaissance tours — there’s no other way to look at it,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told The Hill on Wednesday.
Huffman signed the January 2021 letter expressing concern about tours that occurred the day before the Capitol riot.
Writing on Twitter on Wednesday, the California Democrat said Loudermilk’s walk through the Capitol complex “is NOT just an average tour.”
“This clip appears to be insurrectionists conducting reconnaissance for January 6. The truth is coming out,” he said.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) also wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the behavior in the video released by the Jan. 6 panel “doesn’t look normal at all,” adding, “It looks like reconnaissance.”
Asked about his comments, he told The Hill that he was “astonished by the video.”
“Having previously [been] skeptical, it just sort of affirmed the astonishment that this could actually happen,” he said.
“It was pretty disturbing to see, you know, all the pictures being taken, and that paired with various pretty fiery comments,” he later added, saying it “clearly is possible” that the tour was a reconnaissance mission.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in a Wednesday tweet that he was “deeply disturbed” that a sitting lawmaker “is shown giving what appears to be reconnaissance tours to those who took part in the insurrection,” referring to the Jan. 6 committee’s video.
He told The Hill he has a “credible suspicion” that Loudermilk’s tour was reconnaissance, noting that the video enhanced that thought.
At least one Democrat is directing his frustration at Manger, questioning why the police chief would say no suspicious behavior took place amid an investigation. Huffman told The Hill that Manger “has some serious explaining to do.”
“I want to find out why the hell the Capitol police chief would do what he did, which is deeply concerning: To try to put his thumb on the scale in this issue, while an investigation was pending, and to do it in a way that is totally contrary to the evidence that we all can see,” Huffman said.
The California Democrat said Manger’s conduct “undermines our confidence in the leadership of the Capitol Police at the worst possible time.”
“I thought we were past this kind of nonsense,” he added.
Mike Lillis contributed.