House GOP releases Jan. 6 videos of Pelosi, seeking to shift blame from Trump

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday made their latest attempt to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, releasing a video compilation that sought to shift blame away from former President Donald Trump and onto former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was pursued that day by a violent mob of Trump supporters.

The Republican-controlled House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight released video clips, some previously unseen, shot for an HBO documentary about Pelosi. In them she is shown on the day of the riot venting her rage about the rampage at the Capitol, criticizing security officials for failing to anticipate and prevent it, and saying she felt responsible for their failure.

In the recordings, Pelosi rails against Trump and his role in firing up his supporters who stormed the Capitol, but also repeatedly suggests that she and her staff should have pushed the Capitol Police harder to make sure they were better prepared as Trump summoned thousands of his supporters to Washington to protest the transfer of power from the Trump administration to the Biden administration.

“I don’t care what they say — they should have had much more anticipation about the National Guard,” Pelosi says at one point during the footage.

At another point, she says: “I can’t believe the stupidity. I take full responsibility.”

In yet another clip, Pelosi hints that Capitol Police officials might have deliberately failed to prepare enough, perhaps because they were sympathetic to Trump and his supporters.

“They thought these people would act civilized?” Pelosi said, sitting in the back of a car as her security detail whisked her away from an overrun Capitol to safety. “They thought these people gave a damn?”

She added: “Shame on us. I’m suspicious of their motivation, to tell you the truth.”

The video was shot for a documentary titled “Pelosi in the House” made by filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, Pelosi’s daughter.

Republicans, who have been working for years to absolve Trump for what happened on Jan. 6, used the footage as a fresh opportunity to blame the former speaker for the attack, when more than 150 police officers were injured and a handful of them ultimately lost their lives.

“For over three years, Nancy Pelosi has refused to take responsibility for her failure to secure the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who is leading a Republican investigation seeking to show bias in the work of the Jan. 6 committee. “Instead, she has pushed the focus of the failure on President Trump. As speaker, she controlled House operations and security on the House side of the Capitol — which she acknowledges in this HBO footage.”

In fact, Pelosi was not solely responsible for the security of the Capitol that day. While the speaker wields considerable influence, security is the job of the Capitol Police, which is controlled by a board that includes one security official appointed by the speaker and one by the Senate leader, who at the time was Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Ian Krager, a spokesperson for Pelosi, denounced the Republicans’ efforts.

“Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed again and again that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination on Jan. 6,” Krager said. “The speaker of the House is not in charge of the security of the Capitol Complex — on Jan. 6 or any other day of the week.”

In the video clips, Pelosi repeatedly makes clear she believes the blame for the attack falls on Trump, who spread lies about massive voter fraud stealing the 2020 election from him, fired up a rowdy crowd of his supporters near the White House and directed them to march to the Capitol while Congress was meeting to certify the election.

“I think our focus has to be on the president. Let’s not divert ourselves,” she said at one point, discussing a statement she would issue calling for Trump to be removed from office.

The leaders of the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee made a similar conclusion, opting to focus more on the actions of Trump that led to the assault on the Capitol than the security failures that allowed the complex to be overrun.

In a text message, Alexandra Pelosi said the batch of footage just released was “NOT news!” and noted that some of it had already been seen in her documentary, which premiered on HBO in 2022.

“Hope you appreciate the cinematography,” she added, noting her footwork to capture the scene as her mother fled the angry mob, “backwards and in heels!”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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