House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) suggested on Friday that someone from inside the U.S. Capitol may have been “complicit” in its attack earlier this week, citing the relative ease that Trump’s supporters raided the building on Wednesday.
“I do believe that something was going on,” Clyburn told CBSN’s Lana Zak in an interview on Friday. “They knew where to go.”
Clyburn told the network that he had heard from others in Congress that their staff reported seeing members of the violent mob being let into the building “through side doors.”
“Somebody on the inside of those buildings were complicit in this,” the South Carolina lawmaker asserted.
The comments come after President Trump incited his supporters to lay siege at the U.S. Capitol in what became an attack that left five people dead.
Clyburn added that he felt something was “amiss” on Wednesday morning when he arrived at the U.S. Capitol and “the perimeter had not been established,” in preparation for what was expected to be a contentious joint congressional session to count the Electoral College votes that would reaffirm Joe Biden’s win of the presidency.
“We have seen a double standard here,” Cluyburn said, comparing the lack of security on Wednesday to the incredible show of force amid peaceful Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
“There were no security people on the steps. They were all out in a place which I thought gave low security,” Clyburn said.
“They did not do their jobs. They were not just derelict. You could say they were complicit,” he added of law enforcement.
Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund stepped down after Wednesday’s attack, but amid widespread criticism of police response defended how law enforcement had mobilized to handle the situation calling their actions “heroic given the situation they faced.”
Sund said more than 50 Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan police had sustained injuries and that some were serious. One Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick died on Thursday night due to injuries sustained while on duty during the attack.
