
(LibertySociety.com) – It took a few years to hear it, but former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took responsibility for the National Guard’s unreadiness in handling the situation during the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
Democrats have blamed Trump alone for the security breaches on January 6, but Republicans argue that the previously unseen footage disproves their assertions.
In a video filmed by her daughter Alexandria on January 6, 2021, Pelosi asks why the National Guard wasn’t there as the two of them escaped from the Capitol.
Republicans in charge of the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight released the footage on Monday on X.
Pelosi can be seen riding in the rear of a vehicle as it hurries through what seems to be a Capitol building parking facility. As the vehicle darts around the structure, Pelosi, visibly irritated, asks how the riot got out of hand so fast.
HBO subsequently supplied the footage to congressional investigators in response to a request from Republicans seeking to discredit the select committee’s report from January 6. In the approximately 45 minutes of film that POLITICO watched, the congressional leaders are heard having lengthy talks as they try to make sense of their hasty departure from the Capitol and cope with the immediate aftermath.
Much of what was just turned over to a House Administration subcommittee has never been public, even though snippets of the speaker’s talks that day were presented as part of the previous panel’s work and in a separate documentary by Alexandra Pelosi.
Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were among the top House and Senate officials shown in the tape attempting to organize a military response to the violence while at Fort McNair.
The status of their appeal for assistance from the National Guard was what left them so perplexed.
As they were leaving the Capitol, questions about the matter persisted through a series of phone calls made from Fort McNair to neighboring governors, senior military officials, and leaders in Washington, DC. These concerns have continued throughout the work of the prior Jan. 6 committee and the current GOP-led subcommittee.
In one segment shot at Fort McNair, Schumer asks then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy why he turned down a request for the National Guard. Amidst the invasion of the Capitol, he makes the argument that “we’re like a third-world country here.”
Pelosi then says it is clear that the National Guard was never asked to go to the Capitol, and she takes full responsibility for their unpreparedness.
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