Rep. Barry Loudermilk said that blurring faces in security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, is meant to protect those who marched on the Capitol from “insurrection hunters.”
Sitting for an interview with the right-wing channel OANN on Thursday, Loudermilk defended GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was flamed for saying Tuesday that Republicans are obscuring the faces of some Jan. 6 participants in publicly released videos “because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.”
Johnson’s spokesperson later walked back his remarks, saying the blurring of faces was to “prevent all forms of retaliation against private citizens from any non-governmental actors.”
Loudermilk appeared to echo Johnson’s revised talking points in his interview. The Georgia Republican said the blurring is to “protect the privacy” of people, “especially those who are innocent, who may have been here at the Capitol” but didn’t do anything wrong.
“There are insurrection hunters out there that want to go and like — for instance, one of the people that visited my office was in this room right here on Jan. 5, did absolutely nothing wrong,” Loudermilk added. “But the Jan. 6 committee let his name out, and he got fired from a job even though he didn’t do anything wrong.”
Loudermilk is presumably referring to the man who was filmed making violent threats against Democratic lawmakers outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, who was also seen in security footage from the previous day on a tour of the Capitol complex led by … Loudermilk. The Jan. 6 select committee broadcast those videos at one of its hearings. The man and others in his group were seen in security video taking photos of staircases, tunnels and security checkpoints.
Loudermilk was investigated by the committee over allegations that this tour was a “reconnaissance tour.” He has disputed that characterization of the tours, and he said the group did not enter the Capitol itself.
Capitol police have also said there was “no evidence” that Loudermilk and the group went inside the Capitol building on Jan. 5. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Republicans have released thousands of hours of security footage from Jan. 6 as part of an attempt to erode trust in the select committee and its findings, as my colleague Hayes Brown wrote. Loudermilk has attempted to do the same through his work leading a House committee probe into the Jan. 6 panel — and clear his name at the same time.
In March, he said the probe had revealed documents that showed the Jan. 6 select committee “knew that the allegation that I gave a ‘reconnaissance tour’ was verifiably false, yet continued to make public accusations and ultimately printed that lie” in its final report. “It’s clear their work isn’t credible, and they owe every individual whose reputation they attempted to smear an apology,” he said.
The final text of the report does not use the phrase “reconnaissance tour,” simply stating that one Jan. 6 rallygoer “took a tour of the Capitol with Representative Barry Loudermilk, during which he took pictures of hallways and staircases,” citing footage that’s publicly available.
