The Jan. 6 Select Committee on Thursday announced that it is seeking information from Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who, it says, gave a tour to a group, leading visitors “through parts of the Capitol complex” the day before the deadly Capitol insurrection last year.
In its letter to Loudermilk, committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) cite “public reporting and witness accounts” that “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.”
“For example, in the week following January 6th, Members urged law enforcement leaders to investigate sightings of ‘outside groups in the complex’ on January 5th that ‘appeared to be associated with the rally at the White House the following day,'” Thompson and Cheney wrote.
Thompson and Cheney added that in light of those allegations, Republicans on the House Administration Committee, which Loudermilk is a member of, claimed to have reviewed security footage from the days before the insurrection. Republicans on the committee denied that there were any tours given, nor were there “large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.”
Thompson and Cheney said the committee is seeking a meeting with Loudermilk next week.
The committee’s request to Loudermilk follows the panel’s subpoenas to five House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), earlier this month. It is unclear whether any of the GOP lawmakers will comply with the subpoenas.
Loudermilk voted against certifying the electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6.
Loudermilk was also among a group of Trump allies who texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan 6. At least some of the texts were later obtained and published by CNN.
In them, Loudermilk warns Meadows that “it’s really bad up here on the hill” as a mob of Trump supporters storms the Capitol.
“They have breached the Capitol … this doesn’t help our cause,” Loudermilk wrote to Meadows on Jan. 6, according to CNN.
Days after the insurrection, several Democrats accused an unnamed House Republican of leading a “reconnaissance” tour of the Capitol building before Jan. 6.
Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and John Yarmuth (D-KY) later alleged they saw Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leading a tour of the Capitol for a “large” group days before the insurrection.
“We saw Boebert taking a group of people for a tour sometime after the 3rd and before the 6th. … Now whether these people were people that were involved in the insurrection or not, I do not know,” Cohen told CNN days after the attack.
Boebert denied the claims as “categorically false” in a letter to Cohen, saying that she brought her family into the building for pictures on Jan. 3.
“All of your claims and implications are categorically false. I have never given a tour of the U.S. Capitol to any outside group. As I previously stated, I brought my family to the Capitol on January 2nd for a tour and on the 3rd for pictures to commemorate the day I was sworn in as a Member of the U.S. Congress,” Boebert wrote.
