Capitol Police: GOP-Led Tour Day Before Capitol Breach Not Suspicious

U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger testifies during the Senate Rules and Administration Committee oversight hearing in Washington on Jan. 5, 2022 Tom Williams/Pool/Getty Images

The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) on June 13 undermined a claim from the House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) led a group of 15 people briefly into the Rayburn Building on Jan. 5, 2021, with the group spending about five minutes at exhibits in the basement of the Cannon House Office Building, USCP Chief Thomas Manger said in a letter obtained by The Epoch Times.

But the group did not appear on surveillance footage from tunnels leading to the Capitol, Manger said, adding that “there is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021.”

The Rayburn and Cannon buildings house offices of members of Congress.

Loudermilk separated from the group while the group was examining the exhibits and exited the Cannon building alone. At the time, USCP officers were stationed at the tunnels leading from the building to the Capitol and were only letting members of Congress through, or people accompanied by a member.

“We train our officers on being alert for people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities were observed as suspicious,” Manger said.

In May, Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) accused Loudermilk of leading “a tour ... through parts of the Capitol complex” one day before the Capitol was breached. They said they wanted to question him about the matter.

“As I’ve said since the Jan. 6 Committee made their baseless accusation about me to the media, I never gave a tour of the Capitol on Jan 5, 2021, and a small group visiting their congressman is in no way a suspicious activity,” Loudermilk said in a statement on Tuesday. “Now the Capitol Police have confirmed this fact.”

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) speaks during a hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on May 6, 2019. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A spokesperson for the panel, which Thompson chairs and Cheney is the vice-chair of, did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), a member of the panel, presented with the new letter, told reporters on Capitol Hill that “we should show the video.”

“What Republicans said last year was false—that there were no tours, no MAGA hats—that was patently false,” he said. MAGA stands for Make America Great Again.

Aguilar said he did not distinguish between the Capitol building and the Capitol complex because those who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 “tried to get into every corner of these buildings.”

Loudermilk previously described the group he met on Jan. 5 as “a constituent family with young children,” that no place that they went together was breached the following day, and that no members of the family have been charged or investigated in connection to Jan. 6.

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, had previously urged the USCP to “immediately and without delay” release all video footage from the Capitol on Jan. 5, 2021, noting the accusations that “reconnaissance tours” took place.

Davis said Republican staff members reviewed all the footage and had confirmed that no such tours occurred.

Davis said that he would release the footage himself if the USCP did not release the footage “in a timely manner.”