House Majority Whip James Clyburn Believes Someone Knew About Capitol Hill Attack From Inside

Story by Yahoo 

Written by Tara C. Mahadevan

Sun, January 10, 2021

Image via Getty/Chip Somodevilla

House Majority Whip James Clyburn has said that the ease in which Wednesday’s rioters were able to access the U.S. Capitol makes it seem as if “something untoward may have been going on.”

“I have an unmarked office—you got to know exactly where it is,” the South Carolina Democrat told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “It’s where I spend most of my time doing my work as the majority whip. I have a staff who work real hard trying to keep up with the members—trying to make sure they do an effective job of managing the votes once they get to the floor.”

He implied that his inner office was targeted by the mob: “For some reason, these people showed up at that office. But the office where my name is on the door … was not disturbed. I’m just saying, they didn’t go to where my name was—they went where I usually hang out. So That to me indicates something untoward may have been going on.”

Clyburn echoed those same sentiments on Friday in an interview with CBS News, saying someone on the inside of the Capitol was “complicit” in this week’s events.

“I do believe that something was going on,” Clyburn told CBS anchor Lana Zak. “They knew where to go. I've been told … by some other Congress people that their staff are saying that they saw people being allowed into the building through side doors. Who opened those side doors for these protesters, or I call them these mobsters, to come into the building, not through the main entrance where magnetometers are but through side doors. Yes, somebody on the inside of those buildings were complicit in this.”

Trump insurrectionists attacked the building on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to evacuate while they were meeting to count the Electoral College votes.

Clyburn also told CBS that something felt “amiss” on Wednesday morning when he got to the Capitol and “the perimeter had not been established.” He continued, “There were no security people on the steps. They were all out in a place which I thought gave low security. They were not just derelict. You could say they were complicit.”

Since Wednesday, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund resigned, Twitter permanently banned Trump’s account, and Democrats are looking to impeach the sitting president for again, this time using the Constitution’s 25th Amendment.