Perhaps Loudermilk Should've Been Quieter
There is a newly-released video and photos from the Select Committee. It’s not “blow the roof off” stuff – but it dances close.
You may recall the news story from a couple weeks ago about the suspicion of a Capitol tour given by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-MS). He got very belligerent in his response, insisting he never gave any tours. Then word got out that the Select Committee had surveillance video -- so, his story changed, though just as belligerent. It was only small tour, there were kids, they were singled out because there were a lot of red hats, but none of them were MAGA hats. And none of the people in his group stormed the Capitol.
Well...this new video the Select Committee released shows the tour. It's larger than normal tour groups. There was a kid, though just one. Only one person has a red hat -- and it's a MAGA hat. And evidence that at least one of the people, if it turns out he didn't storm the Capitol, was very much at the rally and making death threats to several members of Congress.
More to the point, which may be most damning, Rep. Loudermilk took the group to less-public entrance points for the House office building into the Capitol, and we see those in the group taking photos of stairways, tunnels and security checkpoints, hardly the things most tourists take photos of. (“And this is a nice picture I took of the Washington Monument. And that is the lovely Potomac River. And there are cherry blossoms D.C. is so famous for! And here is a back stairwell. And that's an interior tunnel Rep. Loudermilk is pointing out. And this is a hallway.”) Further, the Committee's video includes a video they were able to get that one of these Loudermilk “tourists” took outside on the parade grounds threatening the lives of several Democrats in Congress, including Nancy Pelosi and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.
It is so smart of the Select Committee to release these videos. (A friend called them “trailers.”) Very savvy, whetting the appetite and anticipation. But also as importantly saying, “Hey, you seditionist conspirators, look what we have. Not only surveillance video – but personal video that these “they're just tourists” took themselves. It must be striking terror in a lot of Republicans in Congress who had no idea how much material the Select Committee actually has.
This first article is about the letter the Committee just sent to Loudermilk and the video at the bottom of the page --
And this companion article is about a Congressional aide explaining what’s so disturbing about the Committee’s video.
But to make things easier for you, here is the Select Committee's video that they released today.
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