Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi erupted in anger at a reporter who questioned why she had refused a National Guard presence at the Capitol Building ahead of Jan. 6, 2021. Apparently, she’d struck a nerve.
Lindell TV reporter Alison Steinberg approached Pelosi on the Capitol steps Wednesday morning and asked, “Congresswoman Pelosi, are you at all concerned that the new January 6th Committee will find you liable for that day? Why did you refuse the National Guard on January 6th?
Pelosi turned around, pointed at Steinberg, and replied, “SHUT UP! I did not refuse the National Guard. The President didn’t send it. Why are you coming here with Republican talking points as if you’re a serious journalist?”
Pelosi turned away as the reporter said, “The American people want to know. We still have questions.”
Unfortunately for Pelosi, much has been revealed about the period leading up to that fateful day — and none of it reflects favorably on the former Speaker. After FBI reports warned of potential violence at the Capitol prior to January 6, President Donald Trump offered to deploy National Guard troops to protect the building. However, then-Speaker Pelosi and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser both inexplicably declined his offer.
In June 2022, Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon obtained an official timeline from the Capitol Police of the events that occurred in the days leading up to the riot which validates the Trump administration’s account of events. It clearly shows that Democrats, including Pelosi, repeatedly rejected Trump’s offers of National Guard troops despite intelligence showing that violence was entirely possible.
In his article, Solomon detailed the communications between the Pentagon and the Capitol Police from the first offer of National Guard troops on Jan. 2 to Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s final rejection of troops on Jan. 5.
Discussing his findings on Fox News Hannity, Solomon said, “Four days of infamy, four days when the Capitol Police, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, leadership could have hardened the Capitol, could have gotten the resources in place, could have made the strategic decisions, could have accepted the National Guard help that would have saved all those men and women in blue on the Capitol who got injured that day.
“It is overwhelmingly clear that these were repeated political decisions made instead of security decisions,” Solomon noted.
In June 2024, a video emerged of Pelosi speaking with Terry McCullough, her then-chief of staff, in a car during the evacuation of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. It was recorded by Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra, who was filming a documentary that day.
Pelosi is heard expressing frustration that the National Guard had not been called in earlier. Ultimately, she tells McCullough, “I take responsibility.”
The following month, Solomon obtained memos and text messages that shed more light on why Pelosi “privately expressed she felt responsible for Jan. 6 security failures.” He reported that Pelosi’s top security aides had been warned the night before that there would likely be a breach of the Capitol.
According to Solomon, the documents revealed:
Two top House security aides under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi got stark warnings from police the night before the Jan. 6 riots that protesters might try to breach the U.S. Capitol through its tunnel systems and block lawmakers from voting to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election win.The documents obtained by Just the News also confirm that Pelosi’s team played a role in the botched security planning for that fateful day.”We have identified numerous open source comments indicating groups intentions of finding the tunnel entrances and confronting/blocking the MOCs (Members of Congress),” Capitol Police Deputy Chief Sean Gallagher wrote Deputy House Sergeant at Arms Tim Blodgett at 8:55 p.m. on Jan. 5, 2021 in an email that got forwarded less than an hour later to Blodgett’s boss, then-Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving. The second time is listed in UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time.A second warning was sent later that evening about possible threats against Supreme Court justices, and the sergeant-at arms-office scheduled a briefing for Pelosi’s then-chief of staff Terri McCullough the next morning, hours before the breach occurred, according to the messages obtained by House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk.
It’s become clear that, despite the House’s 2022 Soviet-style investigation into Trump’s role in the so-called “insurrection,” Pelosi played a significant yet entirely unexamined role. It’s time for the grand dame herself to be questioned about her actions under oath. House investigators should also subpoena her communications from that period to determine exactly what she knew, when she knew it, and what steps she took to prevent — or perhaps even permit — the chaos that unfolded on January 6.
Judging from her explosive reaction to the reporter’s question on Wednesday, it’s hard to shake the sense that she has something to hide.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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