A U.S. Capitol Police special agent who has been under a cloud of suspicion over apparently untruthful testimony he and another officer gave in the first Oath Keepers Jan. 6 trial suddenly retired from the department on Nov. 22.
David Lazarus was most recently part of the Capitol Police protective detail for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Sources told Blaze News investigative reporter and columnist Steve Baker that a retirement party took place on the same day Lazarus’ retirement took effect.
‘Special Agent Lazarus was unsteady on his feet and his speech was slurred.’
A Blaze News investigation published in October 2023 showed events in testimony Lazarus gave a year earlier in the Oath Keepers trial could not have happened as he described.
Lazarus claimed he witnessed an “antagonistic” encounter between USCP Officer Harry Dunn and a group of Oath Keepers in the Small House Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021.
While Lazarus claimed he saw the hostile Oath Keepers encounter “three or four times” while walking in the area, CCTV security video reviewed extensively by Blaze News showed Lazarus was in a Senate office building when that encounter began and did not arrive until several minutes after the Oath Keepers had departed.
The security video showed Dunn’s actions, likewise, could not have happened as he described under oath.
Oath Keepers defense attorneys said the testimony from Lazarus and Dunn called into serious question the guilty verdicts delivered against five defendants in the trial that ended Nov. 29, 2022. Some attorneys have called for the verdicts to be thrown out due to the apparently tainted testimony.
“Exposing the Lazarus/Dunn January 6 trial testimonies is absolutely essential to showing the American people how far the DOJ was willing to go to hide the truth from defendants and trial attorneys, not just in the Oath Keepers’ trials but in hundreds of others,” Baker said. “Lazarus can retire, but he can’t hide.”
Blaze News also disclosed that a 2016 Capitol Police internal affairs investigation was opened on Lazarus regarding “USCP policy related to alcohol consumption while on duty.”
The alleged violation took place at a National Republican Campaign Committee event in Florida. Two Capitol Police Dignitary Protection Division agents said they observed Lazarus at a bar “drinking what appeared to be an alcoholic beverage with a Member of Congress.”
The agents “observed that Special Agent Lazarus was unsteady on his feet and his speech was slurred.”
Oath Keepers defense attorneys were not made aware of the OPR investigation or allegations of drinking on duty. The Office of Professional Responsibility investigation concluded Lazarus “may have intentionally given false or misleading statements.”
Although the OPR and the inspector for the Dignitary Protection Division said the charge against Lazarus should be upheld, they were overruled by the Capitol Police Office of the General Counsel, according to Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.).
In a letter to Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger in March, Loudermilk expressed concerns about how the charge of drinking on duty was overturned without adequate explanation. He also questioned the thoroughness of a 2023 OPR report opened after Blaze News reported on possible perjury by Lazarus.
“The lack of a robust investigation into the allegations that Agent Lazarus potentially lied under oath is unacceptable,” wrote Loudermilk, chairman of the House Committee on Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.
Baker predicted congressional investigators will continue looking into Lazarus and Dunn.
“Although Lazarus and Dunn have both left the USCP, interest in their trial testimonies will likely continue into the next Congress — at least, that’s what we’re hearing,” he said. “These two now-former cops will likely be called before a committee to explain their contradictory accounts of what happened on January 6.”
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