Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined a growing chorus of lawmakers who have questioned the U.S. Secret Service's conduct during the events leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
Pelosi recalled the phone discussion she had with former Vice President Mike Pence as the violence spiraled out of control in an interview with MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday. A portion of the exchange was broadcast during last week's House select committee hearing.
The House leadership was brought to a secret location, according to Pelosi. Pence remained at the Capitol. The Capitol was being overthrown, and the then-president was doing nothing to stop the atrocity of it all, which worried me much. I was worried because Pence warned that departing would cause his entourage and the vice president's caravan to draw greater attention. I myself questioned whether he could even rely on the Secret Service to transport him to a secure location. I'm not sure.
The crowd of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol while yelling, "Hang Mike Pence!" They were incensed by Pence's failure to summarily reject the Electoral College votes indicating that Joe Biden had won.
Pence was taken to his ceremonial office by Secret Service officials tasked to keep him safe as the fighting erupted, and they pleaded with him to let them take him out of the Capitol.
According to testimony given to the select committee, Pence reportedly warned them, "I'm not leaving the Capitol," evidently fearful for his safety if the rioters saw his automobile.
Once more, Pence's Secret Service escort made an effort to convince the vice president to leave the Capitol.
Pence informed Tim Giebels, his lead security guard, "I trust you, but you're not driving the car." "You guys are leaving if I board that car. I won't be hopping into the car."
The select committee's Democratic member, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, referred to Pence's final statement as "the six most terrifying words of this entire event I've seen so far: "I'm not getting in that car."
The Secret Service has been a key player in the select committee sessions. On January 5 and 6, 2021, the committee issued a subpoena to the agency demanding access to all of its correspondences; however, it originally received only one text message.
The Secret Service's oversight agency, the Department of Homeland Security, inspector general Joseph Cuffari, alerted Congress in the middle of July that the committee's requested text conversations had been deleted. The select committee and House Oversight Committee chairmen then demanded the appointment of a new inspector general as a result of this. The question is whether the Secret Service dismissed the information it had regarding the likelihood that Trump's supporters would become violent on January 6 and whether any of its agents might have been working undercover for the former president.
One Secret Service agent's "problematic" level of loyalty to the previous president was observed by Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, author of "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" and co-author of the book "I Alone Can Fix It," in June.
A sizable portion of Donald Trump's detail was personally rooting for Biden to lose, according to Leonnig. Some of them even used their personal social media accounts to support the uprising and the people riding up to the Capitol as heroes. That is a problem.
Threats made against Pelosi, Pence, and Biden on social media in the days before the Capitol riot were detailed in Secret Service documents obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in August.
Evidently, the agency did not inform Capitol Police of these texts until after the assault.
One of the two Republicans on the select committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, stated to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Monday that the committee wanted additional testimony from Secret Service officers.
There is something going on within the Secret Service, Kinzinger added, and it could be anything from simple incompetence to possibly extremely criminal action or even just a predisposition for one side over another.
"We are aware that these texts were erased as a result of the requests made to keep the documents safe. And there are many questions for which we have no answers. Through unnamed sources, they have made it known that they are prepared to appear in court and give testimony. We need to hear them once again. We intend to speak with them while under oath."
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