'A dead giveaway': Capitol Police slammed by former FBI official for blowing off Loudermilk's MAGA tour

Appearing on CNN's "New Day" with hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar on Thursday morning, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe expressed skepticism and dismay after the head of the Capitol Police dismissed questions about tour led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) the day before the Jan 6th Capitol riot.

On Tuesday, Capitol police chief J. Thomas Manger said an investigation did not reveal any suspicious behavior by the 15 people who accompanied the Donald Trump-supporting Republican and were seen taking curious pictures.

According to Manger, "We train our officers on being alert for people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities we observed to be suspicious."

According to McCabe, he was "shocked" by the letter.

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"I am shocked that the capitol police would release such a statement that essentially gives the entire thing a clean bill of health, right?" McCabe told the hosts. "They're basically saying we don't see anything here. I'm shocked that they would release a statement like that without doing a complete investigation which would, of course, include reviewing the video from January 6th and would, you know, under any reasonable terms include interviewing the people involved to include the congressman but also the people who appear on the video."

"I don't think you really can reconcile the two things," he continued. "It appears to have been a bit of a rush to judgment and I think there were many, many really interesting questions that remain around this issue."

Asked what stood out in the video of the tour, he replied, "Well, you know, this is -- what you see in that video is exactly the same sort of things that investigators who are investigating potential spies or terrorists or people who conduct casing activity, you see the same sorts of behaviors in that video. It doesn't mean that that's what that person was doing, it just appears to be the same sort of pre-operational behavior that you look for among people who are planning some sort of an attack or an operation or something like that."

"The photographing of security facilities and security checkpoints is a dead giveaway to investigators that you have something suspicious on your hands here. That is not something that normal tourists take a look at," he added.

Watch below or at this link.

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