A dramatic video shot during the Capitol riots of January 6 2021 shows Congressional leaders pleading for help from governors and other federal agencies.
The footage was shown during the hearing for the January 6 committee a bipartisan select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives investigating the Capitol attack.
“Oh, my gosh, they’re just breaking windows, they’re doing all kinds of … they said somebody was shot. It’s just horrendous, and all at the instigation of the president of the United States,” a distraught but composed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says on a call to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.
Behind-the-scenes footage of those frantic moments — taken by Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker — provided some of the most riveting and powerful images produced during the Jan. 6 committee’s nine hearings this year.
The never-before-seen footage showed, in real-time, congressional leaders of both parties — including Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. — as they were quickly evacuated to a secure location during the siege and furiously worked the phones to call up reinforcements.
“I’m gonna call up the effin’ secretary of DOD,” Schumer, D-N.Y., says in another video clip.
Capitol riots: Secretary of the Army was asked to intervene
In one dramatic scene, Schumer shouted at the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, after hearing a rumor that Trump blocked the DC National Guard from rushing to the Capitol.
“I’d like to know a good God damn reason why it’s been denied,” Schumer said. “Please – the whole Capitol is rampaged. There is a picture of someone sitting in the chair of the Senate. We’ve all been evacuated. There have been shots fired. We need a full National Guard component, now.”
McCarthy then assures Schumer that there was no stand-down order for the National Guard.
The 6 January committee voted unanimously on Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify before the committee.
But as the BBC explains the vote was largely symbolic. The decision of whether to indict the president for crimes relating to the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol rests with the justice department, not Congress.
And the committee’s formal subpoena of the former president, while historic, is almost certain to be ignored by Trump.
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