by John Solomon and Nicholas Ballasy
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. has confirmed to Congress that it had plainclothes officers at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot and that at least one was captured on video exhorting the crowd, a key House investigator told Just the News.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, said in wide-ranging interview Wednesday night that MPD body cam video that leaked onto the video platform Rumble is authentic and confirms that officers in plainclothes were at the riot.
You can view that video here.
“We know that it is one of their officers and at one point he is encouraging, and it appears he’s encouraging, he’s definitely helping people climb the scaffolding, and he’s telling them go, go, go,” Loudermilk told the Just the News, No Noise television show.
“Why is an officer encouraging people to climb the scaffolding and go into the Capitol? And secondly, why did the MPD Metropolitan Police support department decide to put undercover officers in the crowd? Was there intelligence that they had that was or was not passed on to the Capitol Police and what did the Capitol police do with that evidence, if they got it?” he added.
On May 16, Loudermilk wrote a letter to the MPD police chief requesting additional information about the officers that were present including the original body cam footage from all officers that were on-site at the Capitol that day and “all officer and department after action reports and after incident reports concerning the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
He also requested “a list identifying all MPD officers on duty on January 6, 2021, who were engaged in activities concerning the restoration of civil order at or concerning the U.S. Capitol Complex, including their unit and any information on their assignment, and whether they were in uniform or plain clothes in their role as a law enforcement officer on January 6, 2021.”
According to committee staff, the MPD is cooperating with Loudermilk’s requests but additional details about the presence of the officers is not yet available for public disclosure.
Just the News reported in late March that federal prosecutors divulged in the case of one Jan. 6 defendant, William Pope, that there is police body-cam footage they don’t want to make public that shows D.C. Metropolitan Police officers — some in plain clothes — consorting with the protesters and even exhorting “Go! Go! Go!” as the protesters are trying to penetrate the Capitol.
In a brief filed late by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., prosecutors wrote: “The specific footage, GoPro video recorded by an MPD Police Officer who was stationed at the Capitol in an evidence-gathering capacity, captures the officer shouting words to the effect of ‘Go! Go! Go!’ (MPD-005-000035 at time stamp 2:37), ‘Go! Go! Go!’ (MPD-005-000035 at time stamp 7:23), and ‘Keeping going! Keep going!’ (MPD-005-000035 at time stamp 8:16) apparently to the individuals in front of him on the balustrade of the U.S. Capitol’s northwest staircase around 2:15 p.m.
“At other times in these videos, the officer and the two other plain clothes officers with him appear to join the crowd around them in various chants, to include ‘drain the swamp,’ ‘U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!’, and ‘Whose house? Our house!'”
Pope’s defense team has asked for permission to make the video footage public, but federal prosecutors told the court they want the trial judge’s protective order to remain in place to keep the video from becoming public.
“To do so would be like using a hammer when only a scalpel is needed,” the government argued in opposing the release of the tapes, adding they believed Pope’s “desire to try his case in the media rather than in a court of law is illegitimate.”
Loudermilk said he also was deeply concerned by video footage aired Monday by Just the News showing a door on the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol was unlocked and left open for a lengthy period of time, allowing 309 people to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6 mostly uncontested.
“This is something that the Jan. 6 select committee chose not to look at: a security breach. And that’s something we started looking at and it raised a lot of questions with us,” Loudermilk said. “So through interviews and doing a lot of research, at least we have found out that there’s an issue with those doors.
“You hit one of those doors, that alarm goes off, all right, and it unlocks that door because it’s a fire door. The only way that that door can be secured is someone has to go to an office within the Capitol, get the key for that particular door and go back and then secure that door,” he said.
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John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News. Before founding Just the News, Solomon played key reporting and executive roles at some of America’s most important journalism institutions, such as The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast and The Hill.
Nicholas Ballasy has been breaking news for more than a decade in the nation’s capital and questioning political leaders about the most pressing issues facing the nation. Since 2008, Ballasy has interviewed former President Bill Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former President Donald Trump, Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. John McCain, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and more.
Photo “Capitol Police on January 6” by OverwatchJ6.
