Any members of the US Congress who helped a crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters storm the Capitol should face criminal prosecution, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
The unprecedented January 6 attack on the seat of Congress left five dead and led the House to impeach Trump a second time, for a fiery speech that day in which he urged thousands of his followers to fight Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
The hundreds who stormed the Capitol quickly overwhelmed police guarding the building, calling security preparations into question, and showed a level of detailed knowledge about the location of lawmakers’ officers by some rioters that raised suspicions.
Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill, a former US Navy helicopter pilot, has accused some Republican lawmakers of helping Trump supporters, saying she saw colleagues leading groups on “reconnaissance” tours on January 5.
Pelosi was asked at a news conference whether any actions would be taken against lawmakers who may have brought tours to the Capitol the day before the attack, which briefly halted Congress in its duty of certifying Biden’s win.
“If in fact it is found that members of Congress were accomplices to this insurrection, if they aided and abetted the crimes, there have to be actions taken beyond the Congress, in terms of prosecution for that,” Pelosi said.
More than 30 House Democrats, including Sherrill, have asked the acting House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the acting head of the Capitol Police for information about who was in the building on January 5.