GOP lawmaker who gave Capitol tour the day before Jan 6 wants to investigate select committee

Barry Loudermilk says he wants to lead the committee in charge of Capitol security.

(Getty Images)

The Republican congressman who gave a tour of the US Capitol the day before the January 6 riot now wants to investigate the House select committee investigating the raid.

Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia told Politico that he is interested in becoming chairman of the House Administration Committee if Republicans win the majority in November.

Mr Loudermilk’s words come after Representative Rodney Davis, the ranking member of the committee, lost a member-on-member primary in Illinois to Representative Mary Miller. The committee is in charge of security on Capitol and is currently led by Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, who is a member of the select committee.

The congresssman said that the committee was faulting Capitol security at the expense of “some narrative of pushing blame somewhere” and said that members of the committee “also need to look at things like the false allegations they’ve made against people … because when you make false allegations, that’s in violation of the House rules.”

In addition, Mr Loudermilk said that he did not have a conflict of interest if he became committee chairman despite being targeted by the select committee, saying: “There’s no conflict of interest because I did nothing wrong, and they know it.”

“We need to make sure that we hold ourselves accountable to the rules that we have in this institution”, he said.

When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked if he would support Mr Loudermilk’s bid, Mr McCarthy told Politico they are “looking at everything.”

“Mr. Loudermilk has worked hard on that”, he said.

Last month, the select committee released video evidence that appeared to show Mr Loudermilk leading members of a tour group that photographed and recorded “areas of the complex not typically of interest to tourists, including hallways, staircases, and security checkpoints.”

Mr Loudermilk responded by saying that the tourists were taking pictures of children’s art at the Capitol complex rather than the tunnels in the Capitol complex.