U.S. lawmakers made urgent pleas for help during Jan. 6 riot, video shows

9:22 pm Thursday, October 13th, 2022

By Moira Warburton and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top lawmakers urgently dialed military officials and White House staff seeking help during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters, video shown on Thursday revealed.

At what is likely its last hearing on the deadly attack, the House of Representatives Select Committee aired the previously unseen video that showed the fear gripping the Capitol as rioters stormed the building.

Video showed Pelosi and Schumer, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, and Republican Senator John Thune calling the Department of Defense asking for military backup to help clear the Capitol complex.

Pelosi and Schumer also called acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.

Rioters were breaking windows and ransacking their offices “and all the rest of that – that’s nothing,” Pelosi said on the call, the footage showed.

“The concerns we have about personal safety just transcend everything. 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.”

“Why don’t you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility?” Schumer said on the call. “A public statement: they should all leave.”

The footage also showed Pelosi and top House Democrats being told that members of the House were pulling on gas masks. Upon hearing this, Pelosi silently looked at House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.

“Can you believe it?” she asked, turning to someone off screen.

She was also shown talking to Ralph Northam, then governor of Virginia, asking what military aid his state was able to send and whether he was able to send police without permission from the federal government. In the video, she said she planned to call Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland, about sending the National Guard from his state. Maryland and Virginia border Washington, DC.

The hearing room fell silent while the footage was being shown. Many of those present – including reporters and congressional staff – were in the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O’Brien)