WASHINGTON — The House Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection pressed Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., on Wednesday to discuss a tour he gave of the Capitol complex on Jan. 5 by releasing security footage of an unidentified person on the tour taking photos and video of mundane areas of the building.
"Individuals on the tour photographed and recorded areas of the complex not typically of interest to tourists, including hallways, staircases, and security checkpoints," committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in a letter to Loudermilk.
"The foregoing information raises questions the Select Committee must answer. Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, in advance of January 6, 2021," Thompson said in the letter.
Loudermilk has denied any wrongdoing by the group, which he said came to Washington to attend former President Donald Trump's speech and rally, but decided not to go.
The committee also released footage from the person's Facebook account recorded at the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 in which he threatened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
"They are swarming and converging ... there is no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. We're coming for you," the person says on the video.
The security footage released by the committee shows the person taking images of entry points to the Capitol building through the network of underground tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol while Loudermilk speaks to others on the tour.
On Tuesday, Loudermilk released communication that Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger had with Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis, R-Ill., that "There is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021. 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."
The committee first asked Loudermilk to voluntarily give them more information about the tour in a May 19 letter. Soon after the attack, several Democrats accused Republican supporters of President Donald Trump of giving tours of the Capitol complex to people who attended the Jan. 6 riot but provided no evidence.
