New video shows Pelosi calling officials while sheltering on Jan. 6

‘It’s just horrendous’: Terrified Pelosi and top Dems huddled in Capitol office on January 6 and frantically called Trump’s cabinet, Virginia Governor and DC cops begging for help, new video shows

• The January 6 committee showed a seven-minute video compilation showing what happened in the hours lawmakers were hiding in a secure location while Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol
• It included scenes of Pelosi phoning for help alongside Republican lawmakers like Mitch McConnell
• One clip shows her telling Senate Majority Leader Schumer: ‘I’m gonna call the effing Secretary of DoD’ 
• Another video shows Pelosi tersely replying to an officer who refused to give them a timing estimate: ‘Just pretend for a moment that we’re the Pentagon, or the White House, or some other entity that was under siege’
• The hearing concluded with a unanimous surprise vote to subpoena Trump himself
• The January 6 committee’s Thursday afternoon hearing is the ninth in this current series of presentations
• It could be the panel’s final public event and its future is uncertain next year
• Other new evidence includes Secret Service communications and a video of Mike Pompeo’s deposition

Shocking new videos from last year’s US Capitol riot show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer frantically calling elected officials and military leaders to get help while lawmakers were hiding in a secure location.

The video compilation shows Pelosi calling Virginia Governor Ralph Northam begging for National Guard support while watching Donald Trump’s supporters breaking into the Capitol on TV.

‘It’s just horrendous, and all at the instigation of the President of the United States,’ Pelosi said in the video.

It’s the first time video has been shown of the frantic hours in which lawmakers hid in undisclosed locations while police were grappling with the mob.

The new, disturbing footage came at the end of the hearing where the panel voted unanimously 9-0 to subpoena Trump to give testimony under oath and hand over documents related to the Capitol riot.

The seven Democrats and two Republicans also shared new evidence that Trump was sent drafts of a speech saying he won the election on October 31 – four days before the general election on November 3, 2020.

They also shared new clips and testimony suggesting Trump was going to declare victory even if he was losing and proof that he knew he had been defeated, but kept kept pushing his election fraud claims.

‘There has to be some way we can maintain the sense that people have – that there is some security or some confidence that government can function,’ the Speaker is seen saying alongside House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, shortly after they were evacuated.

Another clip shows Pelosi speaking with Vice President Mike Pence about when lawmakers could safely return to the Capitol.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the phone with then-Vice President Mike Pence from an undisclosed location when people were breaking into the US Capitol

She was seen updating lawmakers – Republicans and Democrats – after her calls

Pelosi is seen accusing Trump of instigating the riot while on the phone with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam

At one point they escalated to the acting Defense Secretary, Jeff Rosen

‘What we left the conversation was, he said – he had the impression from [Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell] that Mitch wants everybody back,’ Pelosi is seen telling colleagues.

‘Well we’re getting a counter point that it could take time to clean up the poo-poo, literally and figuratively, and it may take days to get back.’

An earlier point shows Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling Trump’s acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, for aid. 

‘Why don’t you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility?’ Schumer shot at Rosen. ‘A public statement – they should all leave.’

Pelosi tells him, ‘They’re breaking in, they’re ransacking our offices, all that – that’s nothing.’

‘The concern we have about personal harm – personal safety – it just transcends anything,’ she continued.

‘But the fact is on any given day they’re breaking the law in many different ways – and quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the President of the United States.’ 

Other clips show Democratic leaders huddled with Republicans like McConnell, Senator John Thune and House GOP Whip Steve Scalise while calling for help.

In that video, someone who appears to be a security officer declines to give a specific estimate of when the Capitol would be ‘cleaned out’ of insurrectionists.

A terse Pelosi tells the officer, ‘Well just pretend for a moment that we’re the Pentagon, or the White House, or some other entity that was under siege. And let me say you can logistically get people there as you make the plan.’ 

‘Why don’t you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility?’ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can be heard asking

House Democratic Whip James Clyburn is seen as Pelosi gets an update on the worsening situation at the US Capitol at the time

Unlike in previous hearings, the panel is having no live witnesses at its Thursday event

Later, Schumer and Pelosi are seen standing over a phone where Pence can be heard saying they could return ‘in roughly an hour.’

‘Good news,’ Schumer said. Pelosi added: ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, for the good news.’

While it does not broadly differ from previous narratives and accounts of those hours, the videos paint a visceral picture of the fear and uncertainty lawmakers felt as well as their determination to solve the crisis. 

The bombshell proceedings ended with all nine lawmakers voting unanimously to subpoena Trump.

Introducing the historic motion, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney said: ”We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th’s key player.’ 

Earlier in the hearing it was revealed that Trump ordered a complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia after he lost the 2020 election.

The memo was written to the acting Secretary of Defense on November 11 to take effect on January 15, 2021 – just before President Joe Biden was meant to take office. 

The revelation was made by GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is retiring from Congress at the end of this year after facing opposition from Trump over his re-election.

Trump National Security Council Official Gen. Keith Kellogg said he warned the former president that it could be ‘catastrophic’ in a video played by Kinzinger.  

He also played footage of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley stating of the US’s then-ongoing conflicts there, ‘Yeah we lost, we need to let that issue go to the next guy.’

Lawmakers say it’s proof that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election. 

‘These are the highly consequential actions of a President who knows his term will shortly end,’ Kinzinger said.

Trump’s order was clearly never carried out. 

A video of former US President Donald Trump is played during a hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol

The panel showed a memo signed by Trump directing for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Somalia

The withdrawal ended up happening under President Joe Biden at the end of August

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley testified to the committee that Trump said of some of the US’s ongoing conflicts, ‘Yeah we lost, we need to let that issue go to the next guy’

Biden was widely criticized for his end-of-August 2021 Afghanistan troop withdrawal, which came amid the Taliban’s lightening fast offensive to take back the country from its US-backed government.

But if Trump had withdrawn them earlier, ‘it would have been a debacle,’ Kellogg said. 

At other points of the hearing, lawmakers showed yet more evidence that people closest to Trump in the lead-up to the January 6 attack knew that the election was settled.

The committee showed footage of their deposition from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the first time.

When asked by Cheney if Trump should abide by courts that were throwing out his legal challenges to the election, Pompeo replied that ‘we should all comply with the rule of law to the best of our ability.’

Asked if he believed the election was over after the Electoral College met on December 14, Pompeo replied: ‘Yes.’ 

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson was shown recalling a conversation between her old boss, ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Trump, after the election. 

She recalled Trump saying ‘something to the effect of, “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.”‘

The committee also used newly unveiled messages obtained from the Secret Service to show that Trump was aware he lost – and that those around him knew there was danger coming.

‘Just fyi. POTUS is pissed – breaking news – Supreme Court denied his lawsuit. He is livid now…’ one email read.

More documents show that the Secret Service was warned 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 please take this tip seriously and investigate further,’ one message passed to the Secret Service read. 

Multiple correspondences between agents on the day of the riot show agents were aware that at least some people who had come to DC that day were armed.

‘With so many weapons found so far, you wonder how many are unknown. Could be sporty after dark,’ one agent texted another.

A post on a pro-Trump message board alerted by the agency called then-Vice President Mike Pence a ‘dead man walking’ if he didn’t do the ‘right thing’ to overturn the election.

Rep. Pete Aguilar later said that, in the hours before the riot on January 6, agents were ‘concerned’ about Trump wanting to move to the Capitol.

‘Agents were poised 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 at an earlier hearing that Trump lunged for Engel’s neck when the agent refused to take Trump up to the Capitol after his Stop The Steal rally.

Cheney indicated at the outset that the Thursday hearing is largely focusing on Trump and the interactions others had with him between Election Day 2020 and the January 6 attack.

‘None of this would have happened without him,’ Cheney said pointedly. ‘He was personally and substantially involved.’

She said he was driven by a ‘motivation to spur others to do his bidding.’ 

And if he doesn’t see justice, Cheney warned that another attack on US democracy – that has an even greater chance of succeeding – could follow.

‘Why would Americans assume that our Constitution, and our institutions of our Republic, are invulnerable to another attack? Why would we assume that those institutions will not falter next time?’ she posed.

‘A key lesson of our investigation is this: our institutions only hold when men and women of good faith make them hold, regardless of the political cost. We have no guarantee that these men and women will be in place next time.

‘Any future president inclined to attempt what Donald Trump did in 2020 has now learned not to install people who could stand in the way.’

Source: Read Full Article