A man who took part in a tour of the U.S. Capitol complex on Jan. 5, 2021, with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) was captured on video hurling threats at Democratic lawmakers during the insurrectionist riot the next day.
That’s according to the House select committee investigating the circumstances of the deadly riot, which on Wednesday released video outside the Capitol building shot by the unnamed man. The footage captures him singling out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, before saying, “We’re coming for you.”
“We’re coming to take you out and pull you out by your hairs. … When I get done with you, you’re going to need a shine on top of that bald head,” the man can be heard saying.
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Just a day earlier, according to the committee, the same man “took photos of hallways, tunnels, and staircases within the Capitol complex” during the tour with Rep. Loudermilk.
The man, who has not been identified publicly, had attended the Trump rally at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6 before marching to the Capitol, where he allegedly made the menacing comments about Democratic lawmakers. The footage shows the man located outside the Capitol building during what appears to be the start of the riot, though it does not show him go inside. There was no immediate indication of the man facing charges in connection with the riot.
But Jan. 6 investigators are now demanding more information from Rep. Loudermilk on his tour. In a letter to the Republican lawmaker on Wednesday, the committee expressed alarm at the fact that several members of the tour appeared to be taking pictures and recording “areas not typically of interest to tourists: hallways, staircases and security checkpoints.”
Their behavior, the committee said, “raises concerns about their activity and intent” inside the Capitol complex.
Loudermilk, for his part, has previously denied that there was anything nefarious in his tour of the Capitol grounds on Jan. 5. He was quoted telling Punchbowl News earlier Wednesday that allegations of him “giving reconnaissance tours” had already been “verified as false.”
“To my knowledge, no one that visited my office on January 5 was involved in any illegal activity on January 6; so if the committee has evidence, they should release it, not just make accusations. As a result of the committee’s irresponsible behavior in making false accusations, I have had multiple threats against my life over the past few weeks,” the Georgia Republican was quoted saying.
House Democrats have repeatedly raised questions about whether GOP lawmakers aided Jan. 6 rioters by allowing them to scout out the Capitol building ahead of that day’s attack.
In a January 2021 letter to the U.S. Capitol Police, more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers asked for an “immediate investigation” into “an extremely high number of outside groups” visiting the Capitol complex the day before the riot.
“Members of the group that attacked the Capitol seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the layout of the Capitol Complex,” the letter noted.
Loudermilk’s Jan. 5 tour had already been under scrutiny by the Jan. 6 committee since at least late May, but he shared a letter from the U.S. Capitol Police earlier this week that said a review of surveillance footage found that he and his tour group had never actually entered the U.S. Capitol. Instead, the letter said, they had stuck to areas in the Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon buildings.
“There is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021,” a copy of the letter posted on Twitter read.
