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Shocking new videos from last year’s U.S. Capitol riot show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer frantically call elected officials for help while hiding in a safe location.
The video compilation shows Pelosi calling Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and begging for National Guard support, while watching on TV Donald Trump’s supporters break into the Capitol.
“It’s just awful, and all at the instigation of the President of the United States,” Pelosi said in the video.
It marks the first time video has been shown of the frenetic hours lawmakers hid in undisclosed locations while police grappled with the crowd.
Another clip shows Pelosi speaking with Vice President Mike Pence about when lawmakers can return to the Capitol safely.
“What we left was the conversation, he said – he had the impression of… [Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell] that Mitch wants everyone back’, Pelosi tells colleagues.
“Well, we’re getting a counter-argument that it can take time to clean up the poop, literally and figuratively, and that it can take days to get back.”
Later, Schumer and Pelosi are seen at a phone where Pence is told they can return “in about an hour.”
“Good news,” Schumer said. Pelosi added, “Thank you, Mr. Vice President.”
They were also seen asking Trump’s acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, for help.
“Why don’t you have the president tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, under your law enforcement responsibility?” Schumer asked Rosen.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the phone with then-Vice President Mike Pence from an undisclosed location as people broke into the US Capitol
She was seen updating lawmakers – Republicans and Democrats – after her phone calls
Pelosi accuses Trump of instigating the riot while on the phone with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam
At some point, they escalated to the acting Secretary of Defense, Jeff Rosen
“Why don’t you have the president tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, under your law enforcement responsibility?” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can be heard asking:
Contrary to previous hearings, the panel will not have live witnesses during Thursday’s event
Earlier in the hearing, it was revealed that Trump had ordered the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia after losing the 2020 election.
The memo was written to the acting Secretary of Defense on Nov. 11 and will take effect Jan. 15, 2021 — just before President Joe Biden was due to take office.
The revelation was made by GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger, who will retire at the end of this year following Trump opposition to his reelection.
Trump National Security Council official General Keith Kellogg said he warned the former president it could be “catastrophic” in a video played by Kinzinger.
He also played footage of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, in which he said of the then ongoing conflicts in the US there: ‘Yes, we lost, we have to let that matter go to the next man.’
Lawmakers say it’s proof that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election.
“These are the very sweeping actions of a president who knows his term is coming to an end soon,” Kinzinger said.
Trump’s order was clearly never carried out.
A video of former US President Donald Trump plays during a House Select Committee hearing to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol
The panel showed a memo signed by Trump saying that troops should be withdrawn immediately from Afghanistan and Somalia
The withdrawal happened in late August under President Joe Biden
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, testified before the committee that Trump said of some of the ongoing conflicts in the US: ‘Yes, we have lost, we need to let that matter go to the next man’
Biden has been widely criticized for his troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in late August 2021, which took place amid the Taliban’s blazing-fast offensive to reclaim the country from the US-backed government.
But if Trump had withdrawn them earlier, “it would have been a debacle,” Kellogg said.
At other points in the hearing, lawmakers showed even more evidence that those closest to Trump in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack knew the election had been decided.
The commission showed for the first time images of their ousting of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
When asked by Cheney whether Trump should abide by courts that dismissed his pre-election legal challenges, Pompeo replied that “we should all respect the rule of law to the best of our ability.”
When asked if he believed the election was over after the electoral college met on December 14, Pompeo replied, “Yes.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, recalled a conversation between her longtime boss, ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump, after the election.
She recalled Trump saying “something along the lines of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.”‘
The commission also used newly revealed Secret Service messages to show that Trump knew he was losing — and that those around him knew danger was coming.
‘Ordinary. POTUS is angry – breaking news – Supreme Court has dismissed his lawsuit. He’s furious now…” read an email.
More documents show that the Secret Service was alerted by multiple tips about the Proud Boys, the far-right military group accused of playing a key role in the violence that day.
“Their plan is to literally kill people. Please take this tip seriously and investigate further,” read a message passed to the Secret Service.
Multiple agent correspondence on the day of the riot show agents knew that at least some of the people who had come to DC that day were armed.
“With so many weapons found so far, you wonder how many are unknown. Can be sporty in the dark,” one cop texted another.
A post on a pro-Trump bulletin board warned by the agency called then Vice President Mike Pence a “dead-end man” if he didn’t do “the right thing” to undo the election.
Rep. Pete Aguilar later said that in the hours before the Jan. 6 riots, officers were “concerned” that Trump wanted to move to the Capitol.
“Agents stood ready to take President Trump to the Capitol” later that afternoon, Aguilar said, until the directive was blocked by senior agent Robert Engel.
Cassidy Hutchinson said in an earlier hearing that Trump fell to Engel’s neck when the agent refused to take Trump to the Capitol after his Stop The Steal rally.
Commission Vice Chair Liz Cheney said Thursday’s hearing will focus largely on Trump and the interactions others had with him between Election Day 2020 and the Jan. 6 attack.
“Without him none of this would have happened,” Cheney said emphatically. “He was personally and deeply involved.”
She said he was driven by a “motivation to urge others to do his bidding.”
And if he doesn’t see justice, Cheney warned that another attack on American democracy — which has an even greater chance of succeeding — could follow.
“Why should we assume that those institutions will not fall?” she said.
“Any future president who is inclined to try what Donald Trump did in 2020 has now learned not to install people who can get in the way.”