House Republicans are pushing for the release of Capitol security footage from the day before the Jan. 6 riot in a bid to dispel assertions that there were "reconnaissance tours" before the violence.
Republicans on the House Administration Committee asked the U.S. Capitol Police to release the video after the House committee investigating the riot asked Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) last week to speak with investigators about footage of a tour he led Jan. 5, 2021. Loudermilk has denied that the tour group had any connection to the riot.
The letter to the Capitol Police Board from Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL), the administration panel's ranking member, rejected the idea of reconnaissance tours and said Republicans have also reviewed the tapes and found no evidence of such tours.
“Committee Minority staff have reviewed all footage in question and have confirmed no ‘reconnaissance tours’ occurred,” Davis said in a letter from February. “If the Board has any hope of preserving a reputation as an unbiased security agency and re-establishing itself as a non-partisan entity, there is no alternative but to release the tapes. If the Board does not release the relevant footage in a timely manner, I will have no choice but to exercise my authority under 2 U.S.C. § 1979 to release the footage myself."
However, obtaining and releasing the footage will likely come at a cost. Buying a hard drive big enough to support the hundreds of hours of video footage would cost almost $20,000, according to the Hill, which obtained the letter.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and other Democratic members of Congress claimed to see suspicious activity in the Capitol on Jan. 5. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Alex Kent/Tennessee Lookout |
The U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on Thursday asked Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia to appear before the committee to answer questions about a tour of the Capitol that Loudermilk gave the day before the assault.
But Loudermilk and the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, Rodney Davis of Illinois, issued a statement in response strongly rebutting any suggestion that Loudermilk acted improperly.
“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,” they said.
Shortly after the Jan. 6 attack, 34 House Democrats, led by New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill, urged police to review member-led Capitol tours in the days leading up to the event, saying that some rioters could have used tours to gain information about the layout of the Capitol complex.
Loudermilk said on that occasion as well that Republicans didn’t lead any such “reconnaissance tour” and filed an ethics complaint against the Democrats. --->READ MORE HERE
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