‘Reconnaissance Tours’ and ‘Inside Assistance’: Some Dems Say Other Members of Congress May Have Aided Insurrectionists

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) stunned many across America Tuesday night when she announced live on Facebook she had witnessed Members of Congress giving “reconnaissance” tours inside the Capitol building that one day later would be the scene of a violent and deadly insurrection.

U.S. Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) told CNN Wednesday morning “there was some inside assistance” for the Capitol rioters.

These are not idle speculations by uneducated and inexperienced, attention-grabbing lawmakers.

Congresswoman Sherrill is a former federal prosecutor and a former Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy who served as a helicopter pilot and as a a Russian policy officer.

Congresswoman Demmings was Chief of the Orlando, Florida Police Department. She served in the department for 27 years.

There’s more.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tuesday night said she feared for her life during the attempted coup, and not only from the threat of the insurrectionists but from her own Republican colleagues.

“As the pro-Trump rioters streamed into the Capitol on Jan. 6,” The Washington Post reports, “lawmakers were told to take refuge in a protected ‘extraction point.’ But Ocasio-Cortez said she did not feel safe doing so ‘because there were QAnon and white-supremacist sympathizers and, frankly, white-supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point who I know and who I have felt would disclose my location and would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, et cetera.'”

“So I didn’t even feel safe around other members of Congress,” she told the Post.

“I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die,” she said, noting she couldn’t get into specifics for security reasons. “I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive.”

The Chief of Staff to U.S. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Sarah Groh, told the Boston Globe she discovered that “every panic button in my office had been torn out” when she was in hiding from the insurrectionists.

Sarah Groh, chief of staff to “Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley, tells the Boston Globe that when she hid from the howling mob, she discovered that “every panic button in my office had been torn out.”

Sure hoping for an innocent explanation for this.https://t.co/1NbNmIcB3H

— Helen 0️⃣7️⃣ Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) January 13, 2021

There’s more evidence to support the claims that those who broke into the Capitol had inside assistance – and may be tied to the White House.

On Tuesday The Washington Post reported the FBI had created and circulated a report warning MAGA insurrectionists were preparing for “war” at the U.S. Capitol, and noted specific details including the pro-Trump extremists had been studying maps of congressional tunnels.

Many were stunned to see this tweet from CNN’s Jim Acosta last week on the day of the attack on the Capitol, barely two hours after the building had been breeched.

How is it that a source “close to the White House” was “in touch with some of the rioters at the Capitol”?

A source close to the White House who is in touch with some of the rioters at the Capitol said it’s the goal of those involved to stay inside the Capitol through the night.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 6, 2021

A Capitol police officer said he was stunned the morning of the attack, when he and several of his co-workers were told to go home. His shift was scheduled to end at 7:00 AM but he fully expected to work another shift, because everyone knew there would be trouble.

He told Business Insider he was surprised it was not an “all hands on deck” day, and added: “we could have stopped them from getting in.”

U.S. Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC), the House Majority Whip, three days ago asked how his unmarked office was targeted.

Rep. James Clyburn on CNN: “I have an unmarked office that you have got to know exactly where it is.”

“For some reason, these [rioters] showed up at that office … They didn’t go to where my name was … That to me indicates that something untoward may have been going on.”

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 10, 2021

Former Media Matters journalist, now the Founder and editor of PressRun.Media says what many others are now saying: it was an “inside job.”

inside job https://t.co/0xBODVxQe7

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 13, 2021

Tuesday night, former FBI Asst. Director Frank Figliuzzi on MSNBC questioned why the first real press conference by federal government law enforcement about a deadly domestic terror attack that took place six days earlier was not held by the FBI Director or the head of the Justice Dept.

“When we don’t have the acting Attorney General and the FBI Director showing up at a press conference today, when they send the field guys to do it, there’s something wrong and someone’s getting gagged and someone’s calling the shots from above them.”