The investigation into whether any GOP lawmakers aided rioters at the Capitol went into overdrive on Monday after several Democratic lawmakers confirmed that they personally saw Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leading a “large” group on a “reconnaissance” tour through a tunnel connected to the building days before the Jan. 6 attack that left four rioters and one police officer dead.
The revelation was made by Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, who said during an interview on CNN that he and a fellow lawmaker saw Boebert of Colorado guiding a group of people through the Cannon House Office Building tunnel in the days leading up the Capitol insurrection (video below).
The accusation is significant because it is the first time a member of Congress has specifically accused another member of giving a tour of the Capitol complex prior to the riot.
It comes after several Democratic members have suggested that their Republican colleagues may have been providing the tours as an opportunity for the would-be rioters to get the lay of the land ahead of a planned insurrection.
“Only thing that I’ve seen, Congressman Yarmuth refreshed my recollection yesterday. We saw congresswoman Boebert taking a group of people for a tour sometime after the 3rd and before the 6th. I don’t remember the day we were walking in a tunnel and we saw her and commented who she was and she had a large group with her. Now whether these people were people that were involved in the insurrection or not, I do not know,” Cohen told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “CNN Newsroom.”
Cohen continued, “She was a freshman, she might have had a large number of people coming to be with her on this historic occasion and just wanting to give them the opportunity to have a tour. But it is pretty clear that her team is the team — she’s not on the home team. She was with the visitors.”
Watch the video below:
Boebert, who came under fire for disclosing the location of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as MAGA rioters hunted her down during the violent assault on the Capitol, preemptively denied any wrongdoing.
“The only people I have ever had in the Capitol with me are my young children, husband, mom, aunt and uncle,” Boebert wrote in the letter to Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York. “My mother was the only one of those family members in Washington D.C. on the 6th. During the riots, my mother was locked in a secure location, not in the U.S. Capitol, with my staff and never left their sight.”
