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WASHINGTON – New footage launched by the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, rebel reveals members of a tour group hosted by a Republican lawmaker taking photos of Capitol advanced hallways and making menacing feedback about members of Congress.
The U.S. Capitol Police mentioned this week that it didn’t think about the tour group’s exercise “suspicious.” However the Jan. 6 committee renewed its earlier request for Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who led the tour, to offer extra info.
The video reveals folks within the group taking photos on Jan. 5 within the basement hallways of the Longworth and Cannon Home workplace buildings, that are related to the Capitol by a tunnel. The committee has prompt the group may need been conducting reconnaissance for the following day’s riot.
“People on the tour photographed and recorded areas of the advanced not usually of curiosity to vacationers, together with hallways, staircases and safety checkpoints,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the Choose Committee to Examine the January 6 Assault on america Capitol, wrote in a Wednesday letter to Loudermilk.
The committee’s video additionally consists of Jan. 6 footage of members of the identical tour group marching towards the Capitol after a speech by President Donald Trump. It doesn’t present members of the group coming into the Capitol that day.
Within the footage from the march towards the Capitol, among the folks in Loudermilk’s group made what the committee referred to as “disturbing threats” in opposition to members of Congress.
“There’s no escape,” one man says within the video, earlier than mentioning Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Home Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). “We’re coming for you.”
The Capitol Police mentioned this week that the group’s conduct within the Capitol advanced didn’t elevate safety issues.
“At no time did the group seem in any tunnels that might have led them to the U.S. Capitol,” Capitol Police chief Thomas Manger wrote in a letter to Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ailing.), the highest Republican on the Home Administration Committee.
“There is no such thing as a proof that Consultant Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021,” Manger wrote. “We prepare our officers on being alert for folks conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we don’t think about any of the actions we noticed as suspicious.”
Like different Home Republicans, Loudermilk has refused to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee. He mentioned the Capitol Police letter primarily cleared him of wrongdoing as a result of he “by no means gave a tour of the Capitol” itself, simply the Home workplace buildings.
In his letter to Loudermilk on Wednesday, Thompson prompt the committee had needed to point out the video to the Republican privately, however launched it publicly within the curiosity of getting him to reply questions.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) mentioned on Twitter he thought the tour group’s images was certainly uncommon.
“That is the stairwell I take to my workplace,” Boyle mentioned. “In my 8 yrs right here, I’ve by no means seen a vacationer taking an image of it. “
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