Finally, the words that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have said a long time ago: “I take responsibility” for not having better security in place on Jan. 6, 2021.
As speaker, she was the highest ranking public official in the Capitol.
But Pelosi had a false narrative to push about Donald Trump being solely responsible for the breach of the Capitol. She wanted him impeached and criminally indicted.
Hence, it was mum’s the word.
Now, thanks to the work of the House Oversight Committee, video shot on Jan. 6, 2021, as Pelosi was being evacuating by SUV from the Capitol has been made public. And in it, she takes some blame for what happened.
Politico reported the footage of Pelosi interacting with her chief of staff, Terri McCullough, was taken by the then-speaker’s daughter Alexandra Pelosi for a documentary she was making for HBO called, “Pelosi in the House.”
🚨 Since January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi spent 3+ years and nearly $20 million creating a narrative to blame Donald Trump.
NEW FOOTAGE shows on January 6, Pelosi ADMITTED:
“I take responsibility.”
WATCH: pic.twitter.com/95a0totTWB
— Oversight Subcommittee (@OversightAdmn) June 10, 2024
The video released by the Oversight Committee was not included in the film, but HBO had turned over unaired footage in response to a request from lawmakers.
Should Nancy Pelosi resign?
In it, Pelosi told McCullough: “We have responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there, and we should have. This is ridiculous.”
“You’re going to ask me – in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached the inaugural stuff – ‘should we call the Capitol Police, I mean the National Guard?’ Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?” Pelosi asked.
Yes, that was a question many of us had.
McCullough, replied, “They thought that they had sufficient … resources,” apparently referring to the Capitol Police and perhaps the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police.
“No, that’s not a question of how they had … they don’t know. They clearly didn’t know. And I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more,” Pelosi responded.
Now that’s an honest assessment of her part in what happened on Jan. 6.
But Pelosi was back to her old ways Monday in an interview with MSNBC, accusing Republicans of trying to do “revisionist history” and arguing that Trump did not send the National Guard “for hours.”
“What does he do, but try to deny that any of it happened?” she said.
JUST IN—Nancy Pelosi responds on MSNBC to the bombshell behind the scenes footage of her admitting responsibility for the lack of National Guard Troops on J6:
“They’re trying to do revisionist history on January 6. We cannot let us be dragged into their again false impression of… https://t.co/k8td9QAZt6 pic.twitter.com/1TUaoT4qJu
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 10, 2024
Questions about security failures on Jan. 6 were what Republicans like Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana were asking as Pelosi was forming her Jan. 6 committee in the summer of 2021.
The GOP lawmakers wanted to know why the National Guard had not been deployed ahead of the event to help keep the peace. The day promised to be volatile, with the possibility of not only pro-Trump protesters but also potential clashes with leftist antifa groups and others looking to stir up trouble.
Pelosi blocked both Jordan and Banks from serving on the Jan. 6 committee in favor of anti-Trump then-GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
In December 2022, Jordan, Banks and other House Republican members released a report detailing the security failures on Jan. 6, 2021.
It concluded the reason the National Guard was not deployed ahead of the Electoral College vote was a concern over “optics” — the image of military forces overseeing the election of an American president.
“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021. The Democrat-led investigation in the House of Representatives, however, has disregarded those institutional failings that exposed the Capitol to violence that day,” the report stated.
Based on an official timeline compiled by the Capitol Police, a Pentagon official reached out to the Capitol Police on Jan. 2, 2021, asking whether the department wanted National Guard troops deployed on Jan. 6.
The Capitol Police responded the next day saying no request would be forthcoming.
In September 2023, former Capitol Police Steven Sund testified to the Committee on House Administration, “On Jan. 3, I requested the assistance of the National Guard to support our perimeter and was denied by the two Sergeants at Arms over the concern for politics and optics.”
(The “two Sergeants at Arms” are presumably the sergeants at arms of the House and the Senate.)
Sund believes the reason he was never asked to publicly testify before the Jan. 6 committee is that the lawmakers did not want Pelosi’s decision-making scrutinized.
“Ask yourself why the Jan. 6 committee never requested that I come and publicly testify. Think about that — I’m the chief of the Capitol Police,” he told Fox News.
In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in August 2022, Trump stated that he had offered Pelosi and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser between 10,000 and 20,000 troops ahead of Jan. 6 “because I thought the crowd was going to be very, very large.”
“And they turned it down,” Trump continued.
“Had they not turned it down, you wouldn’t have had Jan. 6 as we know it,” he said.
Pelosi has already established a record of criticizing the use of federal force to maintain order.
In June 2020, Pelosi sent a letter to Trump stating her concern about the “militarization” of the capital after National Guard troops and other federal agents cleared out protesters from Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.
As Americans across the country peacefully protest to demand an end to racial injustice and police brutality, we have seen a shocking deployment of various security officers from multiple jurisdictions to our nation’s capital. Today, I wrote to the President seeking answers. pic.twitter.com/tANprwPH2S
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 4, 2020
The following month, Pelosi criticized Trump for deploying “storm troopers” to deal with rioters trying to burn down the federal courthouse in Oregon.
Unidentified stormtroopers. Unmarked cars. Kidnapping protesters and causing severe injuries in response to graffiti.
These are not the actions of a democratic republic.@DHSgov’s actions in Portland undermine its mission.
Trump & his stormtroopers must be stopped.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 18, 2020
Pelosi was right when she said on Jan 6 that she deserved some of the blame for what happened that day.
Now, she just needs to admit it in public.
