A letter from U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger has exonerated U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk from accusations that he led a tour of the Capitol the day before a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building.
“There is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021,” stated the letter to Loudermilk, dated Monday. “We train our officers on being alert for people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.”
The letter from Manger came almost a month after the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol asked Loudermilk, R-Cassville, about the tour.
According to the letter, a review of security video footage from Jan. 5 showed a group of a dozen of Loudermilk’s constituents, which later grew to 15, entering the Rayburn House Office Building and being greeted by a congressional staffer. The group was then seen heading toward Loudermilk’s office inside the Rayburn building.
About two hours later, the group was again captured on camera entering the basement of the Cannon House Office Building, which features a series of exhibits. During the five minutes the group spent at the exhibits, Loudermilk left them and departed alone.
“At no time did the group appear in any tunnels that would have led them to the U.S. Capitol,” the letter stated. “In addition, the tunnels leading to the U.S. Capitol were posted with USCP (United States Capitol Police) officers, and admittance to the U.S. Capitol without a member of Congress was not permitted on Jan. 5, 2021.”
“The truth will always prevail,” Loudermilk posted on Twitter Tuesday after receiving the letter. “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.”
The committee held televised public hearings last Thursday and again on Monday. A third hearing scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed until Thursday.
Loudermilk represents Georgia’s 11th Congressional District, which includes all of Bartow and Pickens counties and portions of Cobb and Cherokee counties.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
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