As she fled the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear she did not want to evacuate the building and expressed regret that the National Guard had not been pre-positioned to protect Congress ahead of the contentious certification of the 2020 election results, according to video footage turned over this week to House Republican investigators and obtained by Just the News.
“We're calling the National Guard now? They should have been here to start out,” Pelosi can be heard saying as she flees through a tunnel under the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, as her daughter Alexandra videotaped her for an eventual HBO movie.
Pelosi’s expressions of personal regret were not fully aired in that documentary and only recently were turned over to House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk, who took over the congressional investigation of Jan. 6 security failures when Republican came into control of the House in January 2023.
The most recent footage given to Congress provides a stark contrast to Pelosi’s public insistence she had no responsibility for security arrangements by Jan. 6 even though the top House security officer, Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, reported to her.
In the footage, Pelosi can be seen pressing for Irving to resign immediately. And she acknowledged that her fellow lawmakers had repeatedly pressed her ahead of Jan. 6 to ensure there was adequate security.
“How many times did members ask, are we prepared? Are we prepared? We're not prepared for the worst,” Pelosi stated on the tape.
Later, she added: "We will have totally failed. And we've got to take some responsibility."
Just the News reported two years ago that President Donald Trump’s outgoing Pentagon leadership team offered the National Guard to Congress via the Capitol Police four days ahead of the Jan. 6 crisis but was turned down.
The offer and its rejection by Deputy Police Chief Sean Gallagher was memorialized in an after-action timeline created by the Capitol Police to review security failures.
"Carol Corbin (DOD) texts USCP Deputy Chief Sean Gallagher, Protective Service Bureau, to determine whether USCP is considering a request for National Guard soldiers for January 6, 2021 event," the timeline stated in the lone entry listed for Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021.
The following morning, the timeline states, "Gallagher replies to DOD via text that a request for National Guard support not forthcoming at this time after consultation with COP Sund."
The rejection came as the Capitol Police department was beginning to change its assessment, recognizing that the massive Trump rally to protest the November 2020 election results planned for Jan. 6, 2021, had the potential for violence.
Earlier analyses suggested such violence was unlikely and the Jan. 6 event was likely to be “similar to the previous Million MAGA March rallies in November and December,” police records show
But by late December, Capitol Police internal emails and documents show, information began flowing in that some groups expected to attend the Jan. 6 were talking on social media or fringe websites about tactics like blocking tunnels leading to the Capitol.
In bombshell testimony last year, ex-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told Congress he wanted the National Guard in advance of Jan. 6 but was denied permission to ask for them by the top security officials reporting to Pelosi and incoming Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.
“On January 3, I requested the assistance of the National Guard to support my perimeter and was denied by the two Sergeants at Arms over the concerns for politics and optics,” he testified.
The new footage turned over to Congress also shows that Pelosi was already plotting even as she was exiting the building to exact political revenge on Trump for staging the rally the same day as the vote certification.
“I just feel sick about what he did to the Capitol and the country today,” the then-speaker could be heard saying as she left in an SUV after order was restored and she returned to the Capitol to certify the vote. “He’s got to pay a price for that.”
Earlier during the initial evacuation, Pelosi made clear her resistance to leaving the Capitol was driven by a desire to get Biden approved for president and not let the protesters prevail.
“First of all, I don't agree with this, taking me out of the chair,” she said. “But if they stop the proceedings, they will have to succeed in stopping the validation of the president of the United States.”
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