James Clyburn, rehearsal for most of the house, said Friday that the ease with which the mutineers were able to enter the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday suggests that someone inside the Capitol was “complicit” in the assault.
“I think something was going on,” Clyburn told CBSN anchor Lana Zak. “They knew where to go. Some other people in Congress have told me … that their officials say they saw people entering the building through side doors. Who opened those side doors for these protesters, or I call these mobsters, to enter the building, not through the main entrance where there are magnetometers, but through side doors. Yes, someone inside these buildings was complicit. ”
President Trump’s supporters looted the building, forcing the evacuation of lawmakers who were meeting to count the votes of the Electoral College.
Clyburn suggested the crowd was targeting their internal office because there was “activity outside my internal office where most people don’t know where it is.”
“The office with my name on the door was not touched. But the office where I do most of my work, they were on that floor and outside that door,” the South Carolina Democrat said. .
Clyburn also said he felt something was “wrong” Wednesday morning when he arrived at the Capitol and “the perimeter had not been set.”
“There were no security people on the stairs. They were all out in a place he thought gave little security,” he said, adding, “They weren’t just abandoned. You could say they were accomplices.”
Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund he resigned after the riots, but defended the police response to the violence. He said the officers’ actions were “heroic given the situation they were facing.” A police officer and four civilians were killed during the riots.