Video Shows Man on Capitol Complex Tour a Day Before Making Threats at Jan. 6 Riots: 'Coming to Take You Out'
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A man heard threatening Democratic lawmakers while marching towards the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was led on a tour of the Capitol complex the day before by GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk, according to videos released Wednesday by the House committee investigating the attack.
The threatening language used by the man in the footage was directed at Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
"There's no escape, Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. We're coming for you," he says as a crowd marches toward the Capitol. "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. How about that, Pelosi?"
The video compilation released by the Jan. 6 committee also contains surveillance footage that apparently shows the same man inside the Capitol complex the day before, taking pictures with his phone.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty
"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 Bennie Thompson said in a press release Wednesday, renewing a request for Loudermilk to provide information to the panel for its investigation of the attack and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
Rep. Loudermilk is also seen in the footage.
Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
The Georgia lawmaker previously acknowledged he welcomed people into parts of the Capitol complex on Jan. 5, when it was closed due to pandemic restrictions, but denied it was for a "reconnaissance tour."
"A constituent family with young children meeting with their Member of Congress in the House office buildings is not a suspicious group or 'reconnaissance tour.' The family never entered the Capitol building," Loudermilk said in a statement in May.
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"No place that the family went on the 5th was breached on the 6th, the family did not enter the Capitol grounds on the 6th, and no one in that family has been investigated or charged in connection to January 6th," the statement also said.
Asked by reporters Wednesday whom he gave a tour to on Jan. 5, 2021, Loudermilk said, "It was a family and some guests of folks that they brought from Georgia."
"I don't know him. I've never met him before," he added of the man in the video.
Loudermilk was also asked about the claim that the man took photos of security checkpoints in a basement and of a stairwell.
The lawmaker said he brought the visitors to those areas because the children in the group "wanted to see the little trains" — referring to the Capitol subway system that takes lawmakers to and from their offices and congressional chambers — and a "golden eagle sconce on the wall" in the stairwell.
"They're not interested in the truth. They're only interested in creating a narrative for [the media]," Loudermilk said of the committee, adding that his office never received a letter requesting his cooperation. "There's nothing there."
Loudermilk also mentioned that the Capitol Police examined surveillance video and determined that there was nothing suspicious about the tour he led.
"There is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021," Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said earlier this week in a letter to the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, The Washington Post reported. "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."
Loudermilk is a member of the House Administration Committee, which previously said a review of security footage determined there were "no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on" that were captured by cameras.
However, Chairman Thompson and the committee vice chair, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, said in the May letter to Loudermilk that the Jan. 6 investigation's "review of evidence directly contradicts that denial."
