(CNN) — A Tennessee congressman said that he and a fellow lawmaker saw their Repubican colleague Lauren Boebert of Colorado guiding a group of people through the Cannon House Office Building tunnel a few days before the Capitol insurrection on January 6.
Steve Cohen’s statement 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. Several Democratic members have suggested that their Republican colleagues may have been providing tours as an opportunity for the would-be rioters to get the lay of the land ahead of a planned insurrection.
“We saw (Rep.) Boebert taking a group of people for a tour sometime after the 3rd and before the 6th — I don’t remember the day,” Cohen told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “CNN Newsroom.” “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,”
Boebert sent a letter to Cohen, disputing the Democratic congressman’s characterization and saying his comments “repeat irresponsible lies in order to elevate his own political relevance and to further fuel the division of our country.”
“Let me be clear—all of your claims and implications are categorically false,” Boebert wrote. “I have never given a tour of the U.S. Capitol to any outside group. As I previously stated, I brought my family to the Capitol on January 2nd for a tour and on the 3rd for pictures to commemorate the day I was sworn in as a Member of the U.S. Congress. Again, the only people I have ever had in the Capitol with me during the 117th Congress are my young children, husband, mom, aunt and uncle.”
Boebert, 34, has four sons, the oldest of them 15.
Cohen has not reported his observation to the FBI or Capitol Police, a spokesperson for the congressman told CNN. That spokesman also mentioned that the same group was seen by Rep. John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Kentucky.
A spokesperson for Yarmuth confirmed that the congressman recalled seeing a group of people with Boebert in the tunnel on Jan. 3 or 4.
While Cohen is the first to specifically name Boebert as someone who may have given the tours, the rumors surrounding her role in the days leading up to January 6 were so heated that the congresswoman preemptively denied any wrongdoing. Boebert sent Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York a letter denying that she gave tours to insurrectionists after an interview on MSNBC in which Maloney accused Republican members of doing so. Maloney never mentioned Boebert by name.
Prior to the pandemic, the public had wide-ranging access to the Capitol complex, including the tunnels connecting the member office buildings to the Capitol itself. The Sergeant at Arms banned all tours of the Capitol Grounds at the start of the pandemic, but members of Congress were able to ignore the guidance. Lawmakers or staff led tours have never had to register visitors with Capitol Police, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of overall protocols told CNN.
Capitol Police and the FBI would not say on the record if they are investigating any members of Congress for their role in the planning leading up to the insurrection.
In other news concerning Boebert, her communications director, Ben Goldey, resigned Friday after two weeks on the job.
Goldey had drafted his letter of resignation on January 6 due to discomfort about the way Boebert reacted to the insurrection and its aftermath, a source said, but he waited to officially resign until he could have an audience with the freshman congresswoman.
The-CNN-Wire
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