Pelosi Acknowledges Responsibility for National Guard Misstep

Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., acknowledged that she should have had the National Guard better prepared leading up to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, stating, “I take responsibility.”

Recorded on that day as she was taken to safety at Fort McNair during the Capitol Hill riots, Pelosi’s remarks were captured by her daughter and documentarian Alexandra Pelosi. The recording was released Monday by the House Oversight Committee.

“You’re going to ask me, in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached the inaugural stuff, ‘Should we call … the National Guard?'” Pelosi asked her chief of staff Terri McCullough as they rode in an SUV. “Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with? …

“And I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more,” Nancy Pelosi said in the 42-second video, requested by congressional investigators from HBO, Politco reported.

The clip, part of 45 minutes of footage from that day, recorded by Alexandra Pelosi, was not initially released during the House select committee investigation of Jan. 6, led by Democrats. HBO made the footage public after a request from the House Administration’s subcommittee, according to Politico.

While Pelosi and Democrats blamed then-President Donald Trump for not mobilizing the National Guard to deal with the riots, House Republicans released a report in December 2022 claiming that Pelosi and Democratic leadership were more concerned about “optics” following Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 than enhancing security at the Capitol ahead of Jan. 6.

This sentiment was reinforced in private and public hearings with the current Jan. 6 subcommittee. Senior Army officials recounted being restricted from intervening in the riots due to concerns about the optics of deploying the Guard, as per the Politico report.