A bipartisan Senate investigation of security, planning and response failures on the day of the attack said “breakdowns ranged from federal intelligence agencies failing to warn of a potential for violence to a lack of planning and preparation by USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] and law enforcement leadership.”
The June 8 report — led by Sens. Gary Peters, chairman, and Rob Portman, ranking member, of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Amy Klobuchar, chairwoman, and Roy Blunt, ranking member, of the Committee on Rules and Administration — made no mention of any missteps by Pelosi.
In a House Republican press conference on July 27, Banks referred to the “tragic events that happened on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s watch,” and he said the Senate report identified “there was a systemic breakdown of security, a lack of leadership at the very top of the United States Capitol Police who report and who Nancy Pelosi is ultimately responsible for that lack of leadership.”
But he is overstating Pelosi’s authority.
In a statement provided to FactCheck.org, Jane L. Campbell, president and CEO of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, said: “The Speaker of the House does not oversee security of the U.S. Capitol, the Capitol Police Board does, and the Speaker does not oversee the Board. The Board consists of three voting members: the Senate Sergeant at Arms, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Architect of the Capitol; together with one non-voting member, the Chief of the Capitol Police.”
To put names to those titles, on Jan. 6, the Capitol Police chief was Steven Sund; the House sergeant at arms was Paul Irving; the Senate sergeant at arms was Michael Stenger; and the architect of the Capitol was Brett Blanton. Sund, Irving and Stenger all resigned in the wake of the riot.
So how does Pelosi fit into all of this?
“The Speaker is involved in the appointment of the House Sergeant at Arms, who must be confirmed by the House,” Campbell explained. “The Senate Sergeant at Arms is chosen by the Senate. The Speaker also sits on the commission that recommends an Architect of the Capitol to the U.S. President. However, it is the President who appoints the Architect, who must be confirmed by the Senate.”
During the Republican press conference on July 27, Rep. Rodney Davis noted that Irving, the House sergeant at arms, was “appointed by the speaker.” That’s true, but Irving initially came to the position in January 2012 after being nominated by then-House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican. Irving was unanimously approved by the House. He was retained by House votes five more times, including twice when Pelosi was speaker — on Jan. 3, 2019, and Jan. 3, 2021, three days before the riot.
Pelosi, of course, played no role in Stenger’s nomination or election as Senate sergeant at arms. Stenger was nominated by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and approved by unanimous consent by the Senate on April 16, 2018.
Blanton, the architect of the Capitol, was appointed by then-President Donald Trump and was confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate by voice vote on Dec. 19, 2019.
Approving the National Guard
In the July 27 press conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “There’s questions into the leadership within the structure of the speaker’s office where they denied the ability to bring the National Guard here.”
McCarthy also referred — without naming anyone — to “people out there who say there were phone calls to the speaker that offered the National Guard prior to that day and was turned down.”
But there is no evidence of that.
In a Feb. 1 letter to Pelosi, Sund, the former Capitol Police chief — who was hired by the Capitol Police Board in June 2019 — wrote that on Jan. 4, two days before the riot, he “approached the two Sergeants at Arms to request the assistance of the National Guard, as I had no authority to do so without an Emergency Declaration by the Capitol Police Board (CPB).”
(According to a 2017 Government Accountability Office report, the Capitol Police Board “has authority for security decisions, as well as certain human capital and personnel matters, including the approval of officer terminations.”)
Sund said Irving told him he was “concerned about the ‘optics’ and didn’t feel that the intelligence supported it. He referred me to the Senate Sergeant at Arms (who is currently the Chair of the CPB) to get his thoughts on the request. I then spoke to Mr. Stenger and again requested the National Guard. Instead of approving the use of the National Guard, however, Mr. Stenger suggested I ask them how quickly we could get support if needed and to ‘lean forward’ in case we had to request assistance on January 6.”
During Senate testimony on Feb. 23, Sen. Ted Cruz asked Irving and Stenger whether they had any conversation with “congressional leadership” about supplementing the law enforcement presence on Jan. 6 or bringing in the National Guard.
Irving said he had “no follow up conversations and it was not until the 6th that I alerted leadership [Pelosi’s office] that we might be making a request and that was the end of the discussion.”
Stenger said that “it was Jan. 6 that I mentioned it to leader McConnell’s staff.”
So there is no evidence that Pelosi was made aware of any request for National Guard assistance or played any role in the decision not to fulfill Sund’s request on Jan. 4 for National Guard help on Jan. 6. The decision beforehand not to provide National Guard assistance on the Capitol grounds appears to be one made by both Irving and Stenger (who, again, was appointed by McConnell).
‘Optics’
At the press conference on July 27, Jordan read from a Feb. 27 story in the conservative news outlet the Daily Caller: “Pelosi’s office had previously impressed upon Irving that the National Guard was to remain off Capitol Grounds, Irving allegedly told House Admin. The discussions, which centered around ‘optics,’ allegedly occurred in the months prior to the Jan. 6 riot, during a time when deployment of federal resources for civil unrest was unpopular with Democrats and many members of Congress.”
“Why were the Democrats so concerned about the optics?” Jordan asked. “It’s all driven by what happened last summer [during protests after a white police officer murdered George Floyd, a Black man], where Democrats normalized anarchy, normalized political violence, raised bail for the very rioters and looters who destroyed small businesses, attacked innocent civilians and maybe most importantly attacked police officers.”
But this is speculation. There is no evidence available to the public that Pelosi had conversations with Irving about not involving the National Guard on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, or in the months prior, due to “optics.” We asked Pelosi’s spokesman, Hammill, whether Pelosi ever had such conversations with Irving, and he said, “No.” He referred us to a series of fact-checking articles that concluded Pelosi did not stop the National Guard from deploying.
According to Sund, the “optics” concern was raised by Irving on Jan. 4. But during testimony before the Senate in February, Irving said that comment was being mischaracterized. He said the Jan. 4 request for additional National Guard troops “would have been to work traffic control near the Capitol.”
“My use of the word optics has been mischaracterized in the media,” Irving said. “Let me be clear, optics, as portrayed in the media, played no role whatsoever in my decisions about security, and any suggestion to the contrary is false. Safety was always paramount when making security plans for Jan. 6. We did discuss whether the intelligence warranted having troops at the Capitol. That was the issue. And the collective judgment at that time was no, the intelligence did not warrant that.”
Later in the hearing, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley again asked Irving if he was concerned that having the National Guard at the Capitol on Jan. 6 “would look like it was too militarized” or about “the criticism of the guard being deployed in Washington during rioting earlier this summer–summer of 2020.”
“Senator, I was not concerned about appearance whatsoever,” Irving said. “It was all about safety and security. Any reference would have been related to appropriate use of force, display of force, and ultimately the question on the table when we look at any security asset is — does the intelligence warrant it? Does the security plan match with the intelligence? And again, the collective answer was yes.”
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