Panel releases video of Capitol tour before attack
WASHINGTON >> The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection released video on Wednesday of a tour led by a Republican lawmaker the day before the attack, showing participants taking photos of stairwells and tunnels in the Capitol complex.
The panel released the video as it renewed calls for the GOP lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, to speak to the committee about the tour. Loudermilk has so far declined the interview and denied any wrongdoing, and the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police said in a letter to Republicans this week that after reviewing surveillance video, “we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.”
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 who took the video, who is not seen in the footage, is one of the tour participants who was taking photos inside the Capitol the day before.
Later footage taken by the same man shows people approaching the Capitol. The man taking the video then makes apparent threats toward Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and New York Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“They're coming in, coming in like white on rice for Pelosi, Nadler, even you, AOC,” the man says in the video released by the committee. “We're coming to take you out and pull you out by your hairs. … When I get done with you, you're going to need a shine on top of that bald head.”
The panel did not say whether the man got into the Capitol or whether he has faced any charges. .
A member of the panel, Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, tweeted after the video was released: “Please take a look. These are not normal tour routes, the Capitol was closed to tours.”
Loudermilk has not been subpoenaed, and there is no evidence that he knew that any of the participants on his tour were outside the Capitol the next day.