Ex-Capitol Police Chief Thinks 'Multiple' Fed. Agents Were in Jan. 6 Crowd. Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said that multiple federal agents were in the crowd during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, but he wasn't informed of their presence. Sund expressed frustration about not being informed about intelligence acquired by multiple military and federal agencies before the riot. Sund alleged that even as he begged for National Guard assistance—a request that was not granted for hours as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Tucker Carlson's Fox News interview with him never aired, so Tucker invited him back on Twitter.
Sund told Tucker Carlson that in the days leading up to Jan. 6, he was not made privy to intelligence concerning threats against police officers, members of Congress, or an attack on the Capitol Building.
Sund said he was told that the Jan. 6 rally would be like prior Trump rallies, where there were limited skirmishes between Trump supporters and counter-protestors.
Since Jan. 6, Sund says that we know now that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the military had intelligence related to those threats and did not share them with the Capitol Police intelligence agency.
“On Sunday and Monday, they had been discussing locking down the city… because of the concern for violence. You know who issues the permits on Capitol Hill for demonstrations? I do,” Sund told Carlson. “You know, who wasn’t told? Me.”
“Instead, on January 4th, what does [former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller] do? He puts out a memo restricting the National Guard from carrying the various weapons, any weapons, any civil disobedience equipment that would be utilized for the very demonstrations or violence that he sees coming. It just doesn’t make any sense,” Sund said.
Sund told Carlson that he had handled several similar events, but that Jan. 6 was handled differently by intelligence agencies.
“I’ve done many national special security events, and this was handled differently. No intelligence, no [joint intelligence briefing], no coordination, no discussion in advance,” Sund said. “It’s almost like they wanted it to be watered down, the intelligence to be watered down for some reason”
Sund released a book in January of this year detailing his personal account of Jan. 6, entitled “Courage Under Fire: Under Siege and Outnumbered 58 to 1 on January 6,” in which he says he requested the assistance of the National Guard three days before the rally, but was denied.
Sund told Carlson that he was denied the request for the National Guard by Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt because Piatt did not like the “optics” of the National Guard on Capitol Hill.
“This sounds like a setup to me, I’m sorry, it does,” Carlson responded.
Tucker Carlson's Fox News interview with him never aired, so Tucker invited him back on Twitter.
Sund told Tucker Carlson that in the days leading up to Jan. 6, he was not made privy to intelligence concerning threats against police officers, members of Congress, or an attack on the Capitol Building.
Sund said he was told that the Jan. 6 rally would be like prior Trump rallies, where there were limited skirmishes between Trump supporters and counter-protestors.
Since Jan. 6, Sund says that we know now that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the military had intelligence related to those threats and did not share them with the Capitol Police intelligence agency.
“On Sunday and Monday, they had been discussing locking down the city… because of the concern for violence. You know who issues the permits on Capitol Hill for demonstrations? I do,” Sund told Carlson. “You know, who wasn’t told? Me.”
“Instead, on January 4th, what does [former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller] do? He puts out a memo restricting the National Guard from carrying the various weapons, any weapons, any civil disobedience equipment that would be utilized for the very demonstrations or violence that he sees coming. It just doesn’t make any sense,” Sund said.
Sund told Carlson that he had handled several similar events, but that Jan. 6 was handled differently by intelligence agencies.
“I’ve done many national special security events, and this was handled differently. No intelligence, no [joint intelligence briefing], no coordination, no discussion in advance,” Sund said. “It’s almost like they wanted it to be watered down, the intelligence to be watered down for some reason”
Sund released a book in January of this year detailing his personal account of Jan. 6, entitled “Courage Under Fire: Under Siege and Outnumbered 58 to 1 on January 6,” in which he says he requested the assistance of the National Guard three days before the rally, but was denied.
Sund told Carlson that he was denied the request for the National Guard by Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt because Piatt did not like the “optics” of the National Guard on Capitol Hill.
“This sounds like a setup to me, I’m sorry, it does,” Carlson responded.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 You've described this as an intelligence failure, but a failure is something that happens accidentally.
00:04 None of the intelligence that was coming up talking about the storming of the Capitol,
00:08 killing members of Congress, or killing my police officers was ever discussed at the
00:11 conference calls that I was on at least.
00:12 That doesn't seem to make sense at all.
00:14 It doesn't make sense.
00:15 I'm looking at my men and women having their asses handed to them, and my first thought
00:18 was fuck it, I will take whatever disciplinary.
00:21 Once things got out of control, for 71 minutes, Pelosi refused to allow you to bring in the
00:26 National Guard.
00:27 Why don't we have answers?
00:28 It doesn't seem like people really want to get to the bottom of it, and it gets worse
00:32 from there.
00:33 I had a conference call with the leaders of all the law enforcement.
00:36 It was a call I coordinated.
00:38 Not one person on that call talked about any concerns for the intelligence, the attack
00:42 on the Capitol, that we were seeing that was out there.
00:44 That's what's scary.
00:45 This sounds like a setup to me.
00:47 I'm sorry, it does.
00:48 New Jersey State Police beat DC National Guard to the Capitol.
00:52 Wait, cops drove from New Jersey before the National Guard could get from the armory on
00:57 Capitol Hill to the Capitol.
00:59 Why isn't this story everywhere?
01:00 I have no idea.
01:03 If you wanted to understand what happened on January 6th, 2021 at the US Capitol, one
01:08 of the first people you'd talk to, maybe the first, would be Stephen Sund.
01:13 Sund was the chief of Capitol Police that day.
01:16 He knew more about what happened than virtually anyone else in the United States.
01:21 And yet, congressional investigators weren't interested in talking to him.
01:25 The media, not interested in talking to him.
01:28 But we were.
01:29 So earlier this year, we did a long sit-down interview with Stephen Sund about January
01:34 6th.
01:35 That interview was set to air on April 24th of this year, and it never did.
01:40 We don't own that tape, so we can't show it to you.
01:43 So instead, we invited Stephen Sund back to explain what he saw and experienced that day.
01:49 What he has to say is shocking.
01:51 We recommend you watch.
01:53 Mr. Sund, thank you very much for coming back.
01:55 Thank you for having me.
01:57 So I want to start with the days before January 6th, 2021.
02:04 It was commonly known there was going to be a demonstration, or believed there was going
02:06 to be a demonstration in front of the Capitol that day.
02:09 You were the chief of Capitol Police.
02:11 You're in charge of security at the Capitol.
02:15 So it would seem logical that you would have the most intelligence, the most up-to-date,
02:20 most accurate intelligence about what was likely to happen that day, because you're
02:24 consulting with all kinds of other agencies, intel agencies, law enforcement agencies,
02:27 lots of federal agencies.
02:29 But it doesn't sound like you did have the most information about what was going to happen.
02:33 You're absolutely correct.
02:34 I mean, what we've learned that was out there at the time versus what we had coming into
02:38 it, night and day.
02:40 When you talk about the intelligence agency, I have my own intelligence agency up at Capitol
02:44 Police, IICD, Interagency Intelligence Coordination Division.
02:48 That coordinates with the other intelligence agencies.
02:51 And now we're seeing the intelligence I was getting coming into it was indicating this
02:55 was going to be just like the previous MAGA rallies, the November and December rallies
02:59 that we had, where we had limited skirmishes.
03:01 We had some skirmishes afterwards down by BLM Plaza with some of the Antifa groups and
03:06 some of the BLM groups.
03:08 But coming into it, absolutely zero, with the intelligence that we know now existed
03:11 talking about attacking the Capitol, killing my police officers, attacking members of Congress
03:16 and killing members of Congress, none of that was included in the intelligence coming up
03:19 to-
03:20 That you received.
03:21 Correct.
03:22 But others received that intelligence.
03:23 Well, we now know FBI, DHS was swimming in that intelligence.
03:28 We also know now that the military seemed to have some very concerning intelligence
03:31 as well.
03:34 It's hard to overstate how strange that is, because you were in charge of the actual facility
03:42 that was the focus of the protest.
03:44 Well, think about it. I'm the chief of police at the United States Capitol, probably one
03:48 of the most prominent and should be the most secure building in the United States in the
03:51 world. You'd like to think of that.
03:54 But when you look at it, and don't take my word for it, there's now at least four congressional
03:58 reports talking about the intelligence failure, IG reports, GAO reports talking about various
04:03 intelligence failures.
04:05 But coming into it, think about it.
04:07 FBI, the Washington field office, didn't put out a single document, a single official document
04:13 specific to January 6th.
04:15 DHS didn't put out a single official document specific to January 6th.
04:20 That's very unusual.
04:21 I've been through many other events in Washington, D.C.
04:23 FBI would host a joint conference call at the least.
04:28 It may be a executive JTTF, Joint Terrorism Task Force briefing.
04:33 Or for all these big events, DHS and FBI would get together and put out something that was
04:39 called a JIB, a Joint Intelligence Bulletin.
04:41 Zero for January 6th.
04:42 So you've described this as an intelligence failure, but a failure is something that happens
04:46 accidentally.
04:47 And I don't see how this could be accidental.
04:49 So walk us through the contact that you had with DHS and FBI in the days before January
04:54 6th.
04:55 So my contacts with those agencies or the other law enforcement agencies would have
04:59 always been through my IICD.
05:02 They were the ones that were the conduit.
05:03 We're a consumer of intelligence.
05:04 We had turned to the intelligence community to get the latest intelligence.
05:08 I know Metropolitan was hosting a conference call every couple of Mondays, and I was on
05:12 a couple of those conference calls.
05:13 Nothing, none of the intelligence that was coming up talking about the storming of the
05:17 Capitol, killing members of Congress, or killing my police officers was ever discussed in those
05:21 conference calls that I was on at least.
05:23 And think of this.
05:24 And so you never heard that.
05:26 Never heard it.
05:27 But how could you not have?
05:28 I mean, I don't work in a federal bureaucracy, but that doesn't seem to make sense at all.
05:34 It doesn't make sense.
05:35 Think about this.
05:36 On January 5th, the day before the attack at 1 p.m., I think it was 1 or noon, I had
05:42 a conference call with the leaders of all the law enforcement, Conte from Metropolitan
05:47 Police Department, Steve D'Antuono, the director of the Washington field office for the FBI.
05:53 Nobody from DHS was on.
05:54 I hadn't thought about that.
05:55 But all the law enforcement that was down there.
05:57 I had the military district of Washington, General Omar Jones on the phone with me.
06:00 I had the head of the National Guard, William Walker, General William Walker on the call.
06:05 It was a call I coordinated.
06:07 Not one person on that call talked about any concerns for the intelligence, the attack
06:11 on the Capitol, the threats to officers that we were seeing that was out there.
06:16 That's what's scary.
06:17 And to be clear, do we now know for a fact that the people on that call knew about those
06:23 threats and didn't mention them to you?
06:25 So this is what we know for a fact.
06:27 And I'll tell you, I'm not the only chief that was in the dark.
06:30 You look at Robert Conte, head of the largest police department in Washington, D.C.
06:33 He also said the same thing.
06:34 He wasn't getting the same notifications like the Norfolk memo that came out the day before.
06:38 He didn't get it.
06:39 So Steve D'Antuono, who's the Washington field office FBI director, you look at the
06:45 GAO report that came out February of this year.
06:48 It talks about multiple emails.
06:50 It's a GAO report, maybe, no, it's a Senate report that just came out in July, just last
06:55 month.
06:56 It talks about multiple emails going to Steve D'Antuono on Sunday, Monday, and some probably
07:00 Tuesday, just the days before, talking about the violence that they're predicting coming
07:03 up to the Capitol.
07:05 And I have a video call with him on that Tuesday and nothing said about it.
07:08 I mean, that's not a word.
07:11 So not to repeat myself, but that just does not make sense.
07:15 It doesn't.
07:16 It doesn't, especially when you think about, think about this, the military, the United
07:19 States military.
07:21 This gets really convoluted once you get into the response on January 6 and how I was delayed
07:26 getting resources.
07:27 You have the United States military, Secretary of Defense or acting Secretary of Defense
07:31 Miller and General Milley had both discussed locking down the city of Washington, D.C.
07:38 because they were so worried about violence at the Capitol on January 6.
07:41 On Sunday and Monday, they had been discussing locking down the city, revoking permits on
07:46 Capitol Hill because of the concern for violence.
07:48 You know who issues the permits on Capitol Hill for demonstrations?
07:51 I do.
07:52 You know who wasn't told?
07:53 Me.
07:54 Instead, on January 4, what does Miller do?
07:57 He puts out a memo restricting the National Guard from carrying the various weapons, any
08:01 weapons, any civil disobedience equipment that would be utilized for the very demonstrations
08:07 or violence that he sees coming.
08:09 It just doesn't make any sense.
08:11 Wait, wait.
08:12 So the military says we're so concerned about potential imminent violence that we are considering
08:19 shutting down the city.
08:21 But at the very same time, they decide that the National Guard can't adopt an aggressive
08:27 posture to protect the city.
08:28 Right, right.
08:29 Because they're going to be deploying the National Guard to assist Washington, D.C.
08:32 with crowd control at metros and some of the traffic control areas.
08:35 But they put this out on January 4, specific to January 5 and 6.
08:39 And this direction affected the National Guard in Virginia and Maryland.
08:42 When I was calling, begging for assistance on January 6, they weren't allowed to respond
08:46 at first.
08:47 Look at Governor Hogan.
08:49 He did a press conference saying he was begging to respond and he was being denied by the
08:54 Pentagon all because of the memo.
08:56 So, why?
09:00 You know, you begin to wonder why.
09:02 And especially when you look at things like something that I recently came across.
09:05 When you talk about the military, General Milley, you know, we're now finding out, and
09:10 it's not from me, this is from Carol Lennig, an investigative reporter with the Washington
09:13 Post, has found that he was using DataMiner on his own, coming across intelligence.
09:19 Tell us what DataMiner is.
09:20 So DataMiner is an intelligence platform.
09:22 It's not something your average citizen would have on their computer.
09:25 I guess it goes in and does crawling across webs.
09:29 I'm not really sure how it works.
09:31 But it's an intelligence platform.
09:34 He's picking up intelligence talking about killing members of Congress and attacking
09:37 the United States Capitol.
09:38 And he's not telling me.
09:40 He's telling select members of Congress.
09:41 I mean, Carol Lennig writes about it in her book.
09:44 That's concerning as hell.
09:46 Because as the chief of police, you know, there's a duty to warn there.
09:49 And I should be told so I can take the necessary action.
09:52 I don't know who else he was telling, but he sure wasn't telling me.
09:54 Again, what could possibly be the explanation for that?
10:01 You know, I'm not really sure.
10:03 You know, people are...
10:04 You've done this for over 30 years.
10:05 You're very familiar.
10:06 You've been in law enforcement in D.C. specifically for over 30 years.
10:11 So you know how the city runs.
10:12 You know how the federal agencies respond to protests.
10:14 This is not the first violent protest.
10:16 Not at all.
10:17 There have been many.
10:18 I've done many national special security events, and this was handled differently.
10:21 No, you know, the intelligence, no jib, no coordination, no discussion in advance.
10:29 It's almost like they wanted to be watered down.
10:31 The intelligence would be watered down for some reason.
10:32 You know, I talked about a little bit in the book that maybe they were concerned for Trump
10:37 invoking the Insurrection Act, and they were worried about that.
10:39 But I've had people, you know, there's other thoughts out there.
10:43 But you know, luckily we still have people investigating this, because I still think
10:46 there's puzzle pieces missing.
10:48 Someone's going to find out what's really behind all this.
10:50 Because it wasn't right, the way the intelligence was handled and the way we were set up on
10:55 the Hill.
10:56 Big picture, just to restate, you've seen many things like this, and as you just said,
11:00 this was very different.
11:01 This was handled very differently.
11:03 By whom?
11:06 By the intelligence.
11:07 I'd say one, by the intelligence agency.
11:09 Two, by the military.
11:10 So the reason why I say the military, think of this.
11:14 By federal law, you know, Congress passed a law that requires me to go to the Sergeant
11:19 Arms, Capitol Police Board, in advance of an event to request federal resources such
11:25 as the National Guard.
11:26 So Congress passed a law, it's 2 U.S. Code 1970, look it up.
11:30 Just make sure you look it up before December 22 when they changed it.
11:35 So what was in effect on the 6th?
11:36 That requires me to go and get approval for bringing in National Guard or federal assistance
11:40 in advance.
11:41 I have to go to the Capitol Police Board and get approval from congressional leadership
11:44 in advance, like I did on January 3rd.
11:46 I'm denied twice because of optics and because the intelligence didn't support it.
11:50 So think about that.
11:51 Let me ask you, who made that decision?
11:53 Who denied you?
11:54 I was denied by Paul Irving, House Sergeant Arms, and also Mike Stenger, Senate Sergeant
11:59 Arms.
12:00 And who do they work for?
12:01 On January 3rd.
12:02 Who do they work for?
12:03 It would have been working for Pelosi on the House side.
12:04 That Pelosi was the number one boss.
12:06 And then McConnell on the Senate side.
12:10 So effectively, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi shut down your request.
12:15 My request was shut down, one, because of optics, which is interesting.
12:18 You're going to hear that term come up a couple more times.
12:21 Optics or the look of the National Guard on the Hill.
12:24 But yeah, and the Capitol Police Board, I mean, it's unbelievable that I'm the only
12:29 chief of police in the United States that has a law preventing me.
12:32 Not just regulations, rules that say I've got to go and get approval to bring in the
12:35 National Guard.
12:36 A law.
12:37 So that's crazy that Congress is going to pass a law that controls what I can do to
12:40 protect the Capitol and even in emergencies.
12:42 So think of this, even while we're under attack, I have to go to those same two people to request
12:48 the National Guard to be brought in.
12:50 I have 340 National Guard that have been activated.
12:53 At least 150 to 180 of those are in the city, many of them within eyesight of the Capitol.
12:59 We get to come under attack at 1253.
13:01 1255, I called the Washington, D.C. Police Department.
13:04 I talked to their assistant chief, Jeff Carroll.
13:05 Thank God I had talked to him at 1059 in the morning and asked him if he could possibly
13:09 put some additional resources on Constitution Avenue and he had some CDU platoons up there.
13:14 Called him and said, "Hey, please send those in right away."
13:16 Because we knew as soon as they came up to their west front and they started attacking,
13:18 it was going to be bad.
13:20 1258, I make my first call to the Sergeant-at-Arms asking, saying, "Hey, it's bad.
13:23 We need assistance.
13:24 I need a declaration of emergency.
13:26 I need to bring in the military immediately and federal resources."
13:29 I'm told by Paul Irving, "I'm going to run up the chain.
13:33 I'll get back to you."
13:34 The chain is Pelosi.
13:36 The chain is, his chain would be up to Nancy Pelosi.
13:39 He didn't have to do that, but he wouldn't give me authorization.
13:42 The law says in an emergency he can grant me authorization, but he didn't.
13:46 He said he'd run up the chain.
13:47 My next call was over to Mike Stinger.
13:48 He's now the chairman of the Capitol Police Board.
13:51 Told him the same thing.
13:52 "We're getting our asses handed to us on the west front.
13:53 I need federal resources."
13:55 He said, "What did Paul tell you?"
13:56 I said, "He's run up the chain."
13:57 He goes, "Let's wait to hear what we hear from Paul."
13:58 Sorry.
14:01 So for the next 71 minutes, I make 32 calls.
14:06 I'm in the command center.
14:07 I'm calling my partner agencies.
14:09 By law, one of the first people to offer assistance was United States Secret Service.
14:13 By law, I shouldn't have requested their assistance until I had approval.
14:19 But I'm looking at my men and women having their asses handed to them.
14:22 My first thought was, "Fuck it.
14:23 I will take whatever discipline there is.
14:25 Send me whatever you got."
14:26 No.
14:27 That's the one text Secret Service turned over.
14:28 You know how they lost all their texts?
14:30 It's the text between their chief Sullivan and myself.
14:33 Thank God for him.
14:37 You make this call immediately to the House Sergeant at Arms who reports Mr. Irving, who
14:42 reports Nancy Pelosi.
14:43 He says, "I'll call Pelosi."
14:44 He says, "I'm going to run up the chain."
14:47 Run up the chain.
14:48 But that is the chain.
14:49 I hear you.
14:50 I got you.
14:51 I want to tell you exactly what he said immediately.
14:52 What happens then?
14:53 Does he get back to you?
14:54 So for the next 71 minutes, I make the 32 calls to a number of agencies.
14:58 11 of those calls are follow-up calls.
15:00 Look in the Senate combined report from 2001.
15:03 They have a great infographic of the call after call after call after call.
15:06 11 times I call in the next 71 minutes going, "Where are we on the approval?
15:10 Where are we on the approval?"
15:11 He goes, "Any minute now.
15:12 Any minute.
15:13 I'm going to get any minute."
15:14 Finally at 209, 71 minutes later, 209, I'm finally given approval.
15:20 Think about that.
15:21 71 minutes later, I immediately call Mike Stinger and say, "We've got approval."
15:25 I was so pissed off, I made sure that the watch commander—I'm in the command center.
15:28 I yelled to John Wisham, the lieutenant—that's my watch commander.
15:31 I said, "John, mark the time as 210."
15:34 I finally got approval from the National Guard.
15:35 I was that mad.
15:37 So what is the—I just want to pause on this for a minute.
15:40 That's almost unbelievable.
15:41 So this is an event that Pelosi herself has likened to Pearl Harbor at 9/11, you know,
15:47 the worst thing that's ever happened on American soil.
15:50 And she's in charge of allowing the National Guard to come in and respond, but she doesn't
15:55 for 71 minutes?
15:56 What is that?
15:57 You know, I can't fathom why.
16:00 I mean, they had to have known what was going on.
16:02 I was telling them how bad it was.
16:03 It was on TV?
16:04 It was on TV.
16:05 It was right outside of Mike Stinger's office.
16:09 And they had a meeting in his office saying, "Hey, where's the National Guard?"
16:11 And they're like, "Oh, we're trying to make—"
16:13 The fighting is going on right outside his office.
16:15 And I'm still getting delayed.
16:16 This is an unbelievable story.
16:18 Oh, it is.
16:19 Now, get a kick out of this.
16:20 Wait, has anyone ever explained this?
16:22 It's verbatim in my book.
16:23 I have details.
16:25 The whole chapter on January 6th is almost 100 pages long.
16:29 But I don't understand.
16:30 So we're only 10 minutes into this, and you've told me two things.
16:34 One, the other federal agencies withheld critical information from you in charge of security
16:39 at the Capitol before January 6th.
16:41 And once it started and things got out of control, for 71 minutes, Pelosi refused to
16:48 allow you to bring in the National Guard.
16:50 So those are just—those are two of the biggest questions from January 6th.
16:53 And my question is, why don't we have answers to why that happened?
16:57 It doesn't seem like people really want to get to the bottom of it.
17:00 It really doesn't.
17:01 And it just gets worse.
17:04 It gets worse from there.
17:05 I'm sorry to step on your story.
17:06 I just—it's shocking.
17:07 Yeah, it is.
17:08 It is shocking to think that—you know, we should be a coordinated security apparatus.
17:15 There's regulations, there's procedures for defense support for civil authorities.
17:19 I've taught it for the military.
17:20 They don't realize.
17:21 They don't want to come to me and to actually—ask me to actually teach this for foreign governments
17:25 coming to visit.
17:27 There's a process for—when law enforcement needs help and we dial 911, it's through
17:32 the military.
17:33 And that failed.
17:34 That failed miserably because of the law.
17:36 Congress passed.
17:38 And the denial I was receiving—
17:39 Well, it sounds like it was prevented.
17:42 So Paul Irving, the guy who had, you're saying, the statutory authority to give that
17:47 OK, has he ever explained why he was—
17:51 Why he didn't?
17:52 Oh, his—you know, they had him and he testified at the Senate hearing in 2001.
17:58 2021?
17:59 I'm sorry, 2021.
18:00 My apologies.
18:01 Thank you for catching up.
18:02 No problem.
18:03 And a couple of times he disagreed with my recollection.
18:09 I can tell you my phone records, I turned them over immediately.
18:11 I fought to testify.
18:12 They didn't even want me to testify in the Senate hearing.
18:14 I fought to testify.
18:15 Why wouldn't they—oh, there's so much here.
18:18 Who didn't want you to testify?
18:20 So when they first—
18:21 You're the chief of Capitol Police on January 6th.
18:23 You and me are on lockstep with this.
18:26 My story hasn't changed in two and a half years.
18:27 So when they first put out the notice and they were talking about having the hearing,
18:31 it was only for current employees that were still in place.
18:35 No one that was no longer in place in their position in security.
18:39 So think about that.
18:40 Initially, when they put out the request to have—and they put up the—they were talking
18:43 about having the hearing, it would have excluded Paul Irving, would have excluded Mike Stinger,
18:46 and it would have excluded me.
18:48 Only three people.
18:49 The three people at the top of the security apparatus.
18:53 So the Democrats, I think—
18:56 Well, it was joint.
18:57 It was a combined joint.
18:59 I hear you.
19:00 I'm sorry.
19:01 You're absolutely right.
19:02 Yeah.
19:03 Of course.
19:04 The Uniparty intentionally excluded the three people who would know the answers to the key
19:07 questions.
19:08 Yeah, the original plan was to exclude them.
19:10 I immediately called somebody I knew on the rules committee and said, "Please let me
19:15 testify.
19:16 I will be there in person."
19:17 And I still remember.
19:18 She said, "You'll show up in person."
19:19 I said, "I promise you, I will be there in person.
19:21 I want to testify."
19:22 And I was the only one that showed up in person.
19:25 It just seems like the denial of your request to have National Guardsmen who were within
19:31 eyesight, you saw them, to have them help, that is—that's a pivotal moment on that
19:38 day.
19:39 And we know the name of the man who made that decision, and we still don't know why he
19:43 made that decision.
19:44 And that's just shocking to me.
19:46 Has he ever answered that question?
19:48 No, he's never answered that question specifically that I'm aware of.
19:53 And I do know when they were talking about the J6 committee coming out, I think it was
19:58 Representative Bennie Thompson that had said, "Speaker Pelosi is off limits."
20:02 So they wouldn't get any of her records or phone records.
20:04 What do you mean she's off limits?
20:05 I believe that was one of the things he said, that her coming into this was she was off
20:08 limits to the inquiries of the J and J6.
20:11 Well, she was running the House that day.
20:13 I hear you.
20:14 I hear you.
20:15 I mean, if we're truly trying to get to the bottom of this, trying to find out what
20:18 happened—
20:19 Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I mean, that's insane.
20:21 You know, you would be getting everyone's records.
20:22 I've been forthright.
20:24 All my phone records have been turned over.
20:25 And like I said, there's a description of all the numerous calls I made requesting approval.
20:30 Think about it.
20:31 In that 71 minutes, I called in 17 police agencies, 1,700 officers to help us get the
20:37 Capitol back.
20:38 And I also made those 11 calls trying to find out where—
20:40 You are as precise as an airline pilot in your recollection of things.
20:46 So yes, and I think everything you have said is provable.
20:49 I mean, these are not—
20:51 The book's all based on fact.
20:52 You can go through it.
20:53 I reference all the facts I have, footnote.
20:56 You get access to a lot of the intelligence.
20:58 I mean, you know, it's fact.
21:00 My story hasn't changed in two and a half years.
21:01 So just to circle back to this Paul Irving, who played a pivotal role, I think whose name
21:06 is unknown to most people, even people who follow what happened on January 6th.
21:11 What happened to him?
21:13 No idea.
21:14 He disappeared shortly thereafter.
21:17 I haven't heard much from him.
21:19 I had a couple of conversations with Mike Stinger before he passed away, but nothing
21:23 from Mr. Irving.
21:27 So he was House Sergeant at Arms, and then when did he leave after January 6th?
21:32 So it's interesting.
21:35 So he officially left the 7th, but his signature's on a document making the—my assistant chief
21:43 of intelligence, the chief of police on the 8th.
21:44 It's kind of weird the way it worked.
21:46 So I guess he was out the 7th or the 8th.
21:49 Was he close to Pelosi?
21:50 Oh, yes.
21:51 Oh, yeah.
21:52 He was a very loyal—it's interesting.
21:55 He was able to go between Republican and Democrat pretty well.
21:57 Yes.
21:58 Not a huge difference on some level.
21:59 He knew how to play the political game.
22:00 But he was extremely, extremely loyal.
22:03 To Nancy Pelosi.
22:04 And it's unclear what happened to him after he left—
22:09 No idea.
22:10 —the Capitol.
22:11 Yeah.
22:12 Has he done, to your knowledge—we haven't found any, but interviews about—
22:16 Not that I'm aware of, no.
22:18 Was he called to testify before the January 6th committee, do you know?
22:22 I believe he was.
22:23 I believe there may be—I'm just on a blank right now—written testimony of his.
22:29 I know he was one of the two that showed up in 2021 for the Senate hearing.
22:33 He was on video, so was Mike Stenger.
22:36 And they were asking him about his recollection of when I called him.
22:41 And he was like, "I don't recall that."
22:43 Now I had my first timing wrong when I went and asked for the initial National Guard.
22:49 I originally thought it was January 4th, which was Monday.
22:50 It was January 3rd when he denied me the first time.
22:54 Even though he apparently, or certainly federal agencies, had intel suggesting this was going
23:01 to be a bigger-than-normal protest and could be violent.
23:04 Absolutely.
23:05 Now, you know, when you look back and you see some of the intel that was out there—and
23:07 I reference a lot of it in the book—there's intel talking about going up and killing the
23:11 palace guards.
23:12 Those are my officers.
23:14 There are intel talking about using chemicals at some of the entry points.
23:18 There's intel indicating that they've done surveillance on some of the entry points at
23:22 the Capitol.
23:23 None of that's been included.
23:24 They talk about burning down the Supreme Court.
23:25 They talk about different attacks on different members of Congress.
23:30 And they talk about storming the building.
23:32 Not a single word of that is included in any of the intelligence assessments.
23:35 And a matter of fact, my intelligence unit is putting out documents on the 4th, 5th,
23:39 and 6th indicating a low probability of civil disobedience.
23:43 What?
23:44 Yeah.
23:45 So, I mean, if you were—and I'm not—but if you were conspiracy-minded, you might think
23:50 that certain agencies concluded there was likely to be chaos at the Capitol, and that
23:57 served their political purposes, and so they let it happen.
23:59 And they prevented you from stopping it.
24:01 You know, when you tie that into a number of other things that happen, and if you haven't
24:05 been, I'd love to take you through some of the military stuff really quick.
24:08 And I hope you will at length.
24:10 And can I just ask, I think most people don't understand that the U.S. military would have
24:14 a role in a domestic political protest.
24:17 Why would the U.S. military, which we pay to fight wars abroad, be involved in a protest
24:23 in the United States?
24:24 So, the way it would work is, like I said, through a program.
24:27 A lot of times the military will come out.
24:29 They'll do support for civil authorities, whether it's COVID response.
24:32 They did it during the avian flu.
24:34 But they'll also do it during civil disobedience.
24:36 We've used them for—I've activated and sworn in hundreds, if not thousands, of National
24:40 Guard troops for IMF World Bank, for inaugurations.
24:44 We'll have them to help line the parade route, just to help us fortify the perimeter.
24:49 We'll have—sometimes we'll have their QRF quick response force in reserve in case we
24:53 need additional civil disturbance support.
24:58 So that's how they'll kind of support law enforcement.
25:01 So 340 were activated for traffic control and management of crowds around like metro
25:08 stations so they weren't backed up and stuff like that.
25:11 Not for specific civil disobedience.
25:13 So we knew we had National Guard in there.
25:15 And the Defense Support for Civil Authorities program is, if we become overwhelmed, our
25:20 backstop for law enforcement—and I've used up, I used up all my resources and I was overwhelmed—would
25:25 have been the military, specifically the National Guard.
25:29 So 209, I get approval to bring in the National Guard.
25:33 Probably 210, 211, my first call—well, I've already called General Walker.
25:37 Called General Walker at 151.
25:38 I was like, "I can't wait any freaking longer."
25:41 I called him.
25:42 I said, "Send me the National Guard as quick as you can.
25:43 I'm going to get approval any minute."
25:45 Because he asked, "Will you have approval from the Capitol Police Board?"
25:48 And I said, "I'll have approval any minute.
25:50 Please just get them coming this way."
25:52 So they're within eyesight.
25:54 The day after 209, I talked to them.
25:56 234, I get a notification to get on the call with the United States Pentagon.
26:00 I have to sell my request for the National Guard.
26:02 I'm on the call with a Lieutenant General Piott—I'm trying to make sure I have his
26:07 name pronounced right—and a General Flynn is on the call.
26:11 And it's mainly Piott that I'm speaking with.
26:14 I get on the call.
26:15 Mayor Bauer's on the call.
26:17 Chief Conte's on the call.
26:20 And I said, "I need the National Guard immediately.
26:22 This is an urgent, urgent situation."
26:24 I still remember saying "urgent" twice.
26:25 This is urgent, urgent.
26:26 They've got to be looking at the same TVs I'm looking at.
26:29 "I need the National Guard immediately."
26:32 You know what his response is?
26:34 "Don't like the optics of the National Guard on Capitol Hill."
26:38 He goes, "I would rather have your officers in the fight, and we can backfill your officers
26:44 somewhere else."
26:45 I said, "I don't have that option.
26:46 All my officers are in the fight."
26:47 He goes, "I'm telling you, I don't like the optics of the National Guard on the Hill."
26:52 I said, "Sir, we're having our asses handed to us.
26:55 This is life or death.
26:56 I need assistance immediately."
26:57 And I still remember he said, "You know, my recommendation is not to support the request."
27:04 I still remember Robert Conte going, "Whoa, whoa, hold on.
27:07 You're denying the chief of the Capitol Police?"
27:10 And he comes back and he goes, "Not that we're denying him.
27:12 I just don't like the optics of the National Guard on Capitol Hill."
27:15 And he goes, "I'd rather," and he goes back to that again, "I'd rather backfill your people."
27:19 I said, "Sir, I don't have that option."
27:21 This sounds like a setup to me.
27:23 I'm sorry, it does.
27:24 It gets better.
27:25 So I beg and beg, and he goes, "Well, I'm going to walk down the hall and we'll talk
27:31 to the Secretary of Defense or whoever he's going to talk to."
27:35 Right then I get notification.
27:36 So I'm still on the call.
27:38 We have the shooting of Ashley Babbitt.
27:41 And I said, "We have shots fired."
27:42 I still remember yelling over the phone, "We have shots fired on the USCI Capitol.
27:45 Is that urgent enough for you now?
27:47 Hang up the phone because now I've got to start making my notifications.
27:49 I've got to call the Sergeant of the Army saying, 'Hey, we've got what looks like maybe
27:52 a confirmed shooting.'"
27:53 Do you know when the National Guard finally arrived?
27:58 Six p.m.
27:59 Six p.m. they're sworn in on post.
28:00 Do you know those National Guard, the 150 to 180 that are within eyesight of the Capitol?
28:03 You know what they do with them?
28:04 They put them in vehicles, drive them around the Capitol back to the DC Armory.
28:08 You know where the DC Armory is.
28:09 It's far away, yeah.
28:10 Washington White House is on one side, United States Capitol, DC Armory almost equidistant
28:14 on the other side.
28:15 Near RFK Stadium.
28:16 Yeah, over by RFK Stadium.
28:17 I'm going to go to the Pentagon and they send me in the evening trips.
28:20 Not really.
28:21 Can you freaking believe it?
28:22 No, that's real.
28:23 That's real.
28:24 And you know what else they do?
28:25 While I'm begging for assistance, the Pentagon's sending resources to generals' houses to protect
28:28 their homes, but not me.
28:31 So you begin to think, it seems a little conspiratorial.
28:34 I can see where somebody, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I can see where people begin
28:38 to go down that rabbit hole real quick.
28:40 That rabbit hole?
28:41 I mean, I don't know what the other conclusion is.
28:43 Because look, under pressure people make mistakes and make bad decisions.
28:49 But you're describing a systematic denial of intelligence and then of support, defense,
28:59 through a whole bunch of different agencies, a whole bunch of different people, all reaching
29:02 the same baffling conclusion that we're not going to protect the Capitol.
29:08 That's right.
29:09 Multiple agencies with people with extensive experience.
29:11 And you're getting this type of response.
29:14 And when you look at the level of intelligence, it's baffling that nobody put anything out
29:19 ahead of time.
29:20 Maybe it's not baffling.
29:21 I mean, remember, this was the end of the Trump administration, almost two months, two
29:28 months into a contested election.
29:30 This is a politically charged moment with ramifications that we're now living through.
29:35 But there's a lot at stake here.
29:37 This is not just your average protest, correct?
29:40 Correct.
29:41 Did you feel that?
29:42 Did you feel a political vibe coming off these decisions at the time?
29:47 Or were you just showing your law enforcement?
29:48 Oh no.
29:49 I was looking at the cameras that were surrounding me with my officers, the men and women of
29:54 the Capitol Police and the other law enforcement agencies, you know, in a fight for their life.
29:58 All I wanted to do was get them resources.
30:00 And I hadn't even sat back and at that point started thinking about the political aspects
30:03 of it.
30:04 I should say, just because this is our second conversation, and I feel like I know you at
30:07 this point, you're not political.
30:09 I mean, you were a beat cop who rose and became a chief of police, a very prominent one.
30:16 But you never, you know, you weren't like working in politics on the side like a lot
30:20 of these people.
30:21 No.
30:22 And you'll find if you look through it, and I talk about it in the book, I try and be
30:25 as apolitical as possible.
30:27 I can tell.
30:28 Because I think that is extremely important in the application of law.
30:30 I'm a rule of law type of guy.
30:32 But especially being in Washington, DC in special ops, we did demonstrations all the
30:36 time, First Amendment activity.
30:38 You have to be apolitical.
30:39 You got to go in.
30:40 It doesn't matter.
30:41 You know, you have a right to First Amendment freedom of speech.
30:43 It doesn't matter if I agree with you or not, but I have to take an apolitical approach
30:46 to provide you security.
30:48 And I believe it's important.
30:49 You don't need to know what the political leanings of a cop are that's stopping you
30:52 on a traffic stop.
30:53 You shouldn't.
30:54 You should never know that.
30:55 So I'll always be apolitical when it comes into law enforcement, because that's how it
30:58 has to be.
31:00 Amen.
31:01 So by the time the National Guard actually show up at 6 p.m., they're not needed, correct?
31:09 The fight's over.
31:10 So the whole time they were concerned, they were concerned about the optics of the National
31:14 Guard showing up.
31:15 They show up.
31:16 I have an official swear them in as special police officers.
31:20 They take them.
31:21 They line them up with their shields.
31:23 All the protesters are off.
31:24 They line them up with their shields, and they take a couple of pictures for military
31:26 magazines and stuff like that of them lined up with the Capitol in the background.
31:31 The very optics they said they were so concerned about.
31:33 They took pictures for military magazines?
31:35 Think about it.
31:36 You can look it up.
31:37 You can look up on some of the...
31:38 Go online, look up.
31:39 Like, "We're the Heroes of January 6th?"
31:40 Yeah, "Hey, we're the Heroes of January..."
31:41 Yeah.
31:42 So, you know, and I appreciate my men...
31:43 I come from a military family.
31:44 I appreciate the men and women in the military.
31:46 And I will tell you, when they finally showed up, New Jersey State Police beat them to the
31:53 Capitol before the D.C. National Guard arrived at the Capitol.
31:58 I had D.C. National Guard's men and women that were infuriated.
32:01 They were so pissed off that they weren't allowed to respond.
32:04 They were extremely upset.
32:05 Wait, cops drove from New Jersey before the National Guard could get from the armory on
32:11 Capitol Hill to the Capitol?
32:12 I'd put out a request, a mutual aid request that went all up and down the National Capitol
32:18 region, went up to...
32:19 Why isn't this story everywhere?
32:21 I have no idea.
32:22 I have no idea.
32:23 General Walker even said...
32:24 He called me up.
32:25 He said, "Steve, I felt so bad.
32:26 I pulled up on the scene."
32:27 He's the head of the D.C. National Guard.
32:30 He said, "I pulled up on the scene, and the New Jersey State Police beat us to the Capitol."
32:35 He said he wasn't allowed to go.
32:36 He repeatedly wanted to go, and the Pentagon wasn't allowing him.
32:38 And yet the Pentagon celebrated the guardsmen who showed up at 6 p.m. when everything was
32:44 done as heroes.
32:45 Meanwhile, they sent other guardsmen to protect the homes of generals.
32:49 Yeah, they sent other resources.
32:50 I don't know if they're guard or Pentagon force protection or what, but the kicker is
32:54 this.
32:55 The Department of Defense, and they interviewed me.
32:57 I wouldn't have been interviewed by anybody, because I'm telling the truth.
33:01 They interviewed me.
33:02 I provided them all my phone records.
33:03 They were part of the...
33:04 All the records.
33:05 You know they put out a report saying the actions of the United States military was
33:08 appropriate considering the circumstances?
33:10 Was appropriate?
33:11 It's online.
33:12 Yeah, go look up the details.
33:13 No one apologized?
33:14 No one apologized.
33:15 No one was fired?
33:16 Their actions were appropriate.
33:19 They had an emergency response authority under DSCA to respond immediately, and they didn't.
33:26 Do you think that the Pentagon was gathering intelligence before and during January 6th?
33:32 Well, when you look at the fact that, you know, Million Miller, you know, specifically
33:36 Million was talking about locking down the city.
33:39 He had to have some pretty damn concerning intelligence.
33:41 That's a pretty big stretch for the government, for the military to talk about locking down
33:45 the capital city and revoking First Amendment permits.
33:48 In a democracy, that would be a big stretch.
33:50 I mean, that's a big stretch.
33:51 It's close to a coup, actually, at that point.
33:53 And then when you hear, you know, about some of the stuff he was getting online and he
33:55 was only talking to members of Congress, it raises a lot of concerns.
34:00 Does the Pentagon, does Defense Intelligence Agency have undercover intel operatives that
34:07 you're aware of?
34:08 I have no idea.
34:09 And I think it is important, since you bring up the intelligence, it's important for people
34:14 to realize, again, as the United States Capitol Police, we're not part of the intelligence
34:17 community, the technical IC.
34:19 There's 18 agencies.
34:20 Nine of those agencies are military agencies.
34:22 So that gives you an idea of how heavily weighted half of the IC is military.
34:28 But I think the average person imagines that military intelligence is not allowed constitutionally
34:35 to function on American soil.
34:37 Yeah, you would think.
34:38 Because we're not ruled by a junta.
34:40 Yeah, I mean, I don't know the specifics, but you'd think that it would be.
34:42 In your career, have you seen evidence that the half of the IC, half of those 18 intel
34:49 agencies, the military ones, are working in the United States?
34:53 I've never received, in my times of doing the special events, demonstrations, intel
34:57 briefings, I've never received intel from the military.
35:00 So it's always been, you know, the DHS, FBI, it's always been those folks.
35:04 Never, never anyone said, "Hey, we got this from military intelligence."
35:07 So in the aftermath of January 6th, there's been a huge debate over to what extent, you
35:15 know, there were federal agents or people who are working in some way for federal agencies
35:21 in the crowd.
35:22 And the initial explanation was, "Well, none.
35:25 And you're insane if you think that.
35:27 You know, you're Alex Jones.
35:28 You're crazy."
35:29 And then over the last couple of years, we've seen people confirm, people in authority confirm,
35:35 actually, yeah, there were a lot in the crowd that day.
35:39 I mean, that's now a fact.
35:43 Did you know that going in?
35:44 No.
35:45 No.
35:46 So just for perspective, since you've been to a lot of these events, there's a huge,
35:50 a planned demonstration in Washington, D.C.
35:53 Will there always be assets, agents, people working for federal agencies in the crowd
36:00 in civilian clothes?
36:02 There always could be.
36:03 And for like inaugurations, there would usually be some combined teams out there, one for
36:09 communications but just, you know, for situational awareness.
36:12 So it wouldn't be surprising, you know, 4th of July, different things like that where
36:16 you have threat pictures or concerning threat pictures.
36:19 And what does that look like?
36:20 Does that mean, you know, FBI agents dressed in dockers and tennis shoes trying to-
36:26 Oh, it'd just be, yeah, just plain clothes.
36:29 Plain clothes to blend in.
36:31 So that wouldn't be unusual.
36:32 And it'd be, you know, just standard police work.
36:34 That'd be good police work.
36:36 So coming into January 6th, and I talk about it in the book with the fact that shortly
36:40 after January 6th, I'm driving through Loudoun County.
36:44 I'm coming, actually I just talked to somebody from the Hill, and I get a call from overseas.
36:49 And it's press.
36:50 I don't remember what it was.
36:51 It was somebody from Great Britain.
36:53 And they start asking me about feds in the crowd.
36:55 And I was like, "No, no, I would have been told."
36:57 I said, "No, we're getting word that there is feds in the crowd."
37:00 I said, "No, I would have been told.
37:02 I've got lots of friends with the Bureau.
37:04 They all have my cell phone number.
37:05 They would have told me."
37:06 You know, thinking about that, and Jill Sanborn's testimony in 2021 where she said they were
37:11 taking overt action to keep certain people from coming to January 6th to Washington,
37:16 D.C., that's big for FBI to start taking overt action.
37:20 I mean, that's not covert, overt.
37:23 That's a big deal.
37:25 Fast forward to February of this year, 2023, and the GAO report that says on January 3rd,
37:32 the FBI was tracking four domestic terrorists that were talked about coming to Washington,
37:35 D.C.
37:36 The Washington Field Office, their AOR, Area of Responsibility.
37:39 By January 6th, they were tracking 18 or 19, it's in the GAO report, domestic terrorists.
37:46 So think about that.
37:47 They have 18 or 19 domestic terrorists coming to this event.
37:50 So of course they're going to have resources on them.
37:52 And you're not going to be just putting one agent.
37:54 You're going to have multiples.
37:55 So it'd be multiple with that.
37:57 And I don't know how many they actually had coming out.
37:59 So that would be regular standard police work.
38:02 So I wouldn't be surprised by that.
38:03 But not to share that in the intelligence, that's concerning.
38:07 So I mean, it seems like common sense suggests anyway that you would have to tell the chief
38:12 of Capitol Police that, "Hey, we've got our guys in the crowd."
38:16 Like just because, I mean, you would want to know the difference, correct?
38:21 You would absolutely want to know the difference.
38:22 And de-confliction, you want to have things like that.
38:25 A lot of the folks will already know there's a lot of standard procedures for ways you
38:29 de-conflict so you don't have blue on blue type of situations.
38:32 You'll have that.
38:34 I will say this, and just really quick.
38:36 So that would just, because you have perspective, that would be the conventional way, the by-the-book
38:41 way to do it.
38:42 The FBI would call you and say, "Hey, we're worried about people in the crowd, and we've
38:46 got our guys there too.
38:48 Here's who they are."
38:49 So just to de-conflict operations, they wouldn't necessarily call me.
38:52 They might call my deputy chief that's in charge of my intel and their people.
38:56 Well, sure, but they would call Capitol Police.
38:57 You would coordinate.
38:58 You would coordinate with DC police.
38:59 You would coordinate with Park police.
39:00 You would coordinate with Secret Service just so everyone kind of knew what was going on.
39:04 And really quickly, I do want to say this.
39:07 Nowhere do I want to imply or indicate that I feel that agents instigated this or in any
39:13 way like that.
39:14 I'm never saying that.
39:15 I haven't said that.
39:16 But a lot of these agencies came to my defense on January 6th, FBI, Secret Service, stuff
39:20 like that.
39:21 So I just want to make sure that's clear.
39:22 But there would have been some coordination.
39:23 And when you look at it and you think with the intelligence coming in, if you think there's
39:26 19 domestic terrorists coming to Washington, DC, somehow that would have been included
39:32 in some type of report.
39:34 And when you look at the FBI's procedures, policies and procedures, and again, go online,
39:39 the Attorney General's Guidance for Domestic Operations of the FBI specifically says the
39:45 FBI is to do an assessment, an assessment which includes intelligence assessments of
39:49 events that are, they're identifying as being the target of possible threats and possible
39:54 violence.
39:55 I think that would have been the United States Capitol on January 6th.
39:59 Look through that document.
40:00 I outlined it in the book and see all the repeated failure after failure after failure
40:04 of their own procedures to start identifying intelligence and making the proper notifications.
40:08 So it does, but it does raise it.
40:10 And I don't have the answer to this question and I hope I don't ever pretend that I do,
40:14 but it does raise questions about the behavior of some of the people in the crowd who were
40:19 instigating others to break the law and who weren't arrested.
40:25 And you know, given our facial recognition software capabilities, hard to believe they
40:30 can't be found.
40:32 And I would specifically cite a man called Ray Epps, who's now a hero on the left and
40:36 funded by the Democratic Party, et cetera, but take the politics out of it.
40:40 What is that?
40:41 You have a guy on camera repeatedly saying, "We're going to the Capitol."
40:46 We need to go into the Capitol.
40:48 Into the Capitol.
40:51 And he's not in jail when people who didn't go into the Capitol are in jail?
40:56 What do you make of that?
40:58 Again, that's something I actually address in the book.
41:00 It's funny.
41:01 There's a lot in here.
41:02 So my concern with that, and I look at it from a chief of police point of view, is you
41:06 have somebody that's down and I believe he's right near the old executive office building
41:09 on the 5th, the day before January 6th, talking to a group of people, talking about, "We have
41:13 to get into the building.
41:14 We have to get in the building."
41:16 And then the next day to see him at what's called the Pennsylvania Avenue gate, it's
41:19 one of the two fence lines I had down at the West Front, and he's there and he clearly
41:25 sees the metal crowd control barriers that are up with the signs saying "restricted."
41:30 So he knows that's a restricted area.
41:33 And he's up there and you see him lean in and he whispers in somebody's ear, and he
41:36 covers his mouth in such a way so you can't read his lips or anything, whispers in somebody's
41:39 ear.
41:40 And that person, moments later, is attacking my officers.
41:44 That's suspicious as hell to me.
41:45 It raised a lot of concerns for me.
41:47 What is that?
41:48 You know, and what's interesting is I believe-
41:49 And that's verified.
41:51 The person into who's here, he whispered-
41:53 Yeah, I think if you watch the video, you see that person immediately go and start pulling
41:57 on the gate and start fighting with the officers.
42:00 And what's interesting is when, I believe he went on 60 Minutes, and on 60 Minutes,
42:06 what he said was he went up to the officer and he told that officer, "These officers
42:09 are on our side.
42:10 Don't hurt these officers."
42:11 I believe that was pretty much not verbatim.
42:14 "But don't hurt these officers.
42:15 They're on our side.
42:16 Don't hurt these officers."
42:17 Well, if that's the case, why would you cover your mouth and not yell it to everybody?
42:22 Because it didn't seem like that protester was the only one that was possibly going to
42:25 be hurting the officers.
42:26 We had a whole bunch of people next to him.
42:27 Why wouldn't he tell it to the whole group?
42:29 I don't know.
42:30 I know that EPSA is being encouraged by partisan Democrats to sue people who raise these questions,
42:35 but they're fair questions and I'm going to raise them anyway.
42:39 How given that tape could the January 6th committee defend Ray Epps, which they did?
42:46 Doesn't make any sense to me.
42:48 Yeah.
42:49 I'm having trouble answering that one.
42:50 I don't know.
42:51 Interesting.
42:52 How many federal agents, officers, assets, people connected with federal agencies do
43:01 you think were in the crowd?
43:02 Do we have any idea?
43:04 I really have no idea.
43:06 More or fewer than normal, would you say?
43:08 Well, if you have, again, going back to what I'm reading now in the GAO report with 19
43:12 domestic terrorist possibly coming in, I've never seen anything like that in Washington,
43:17 DC.
43:18 So, you may have a larger than usual presence.
43:21 Amazing.
43:22 Who's Yogananda Pitman?
43:25 Yogananda Pitman was my assistant chief for intelligence and security.
43:30 Okay.
43:31 So, did she have the intelligence that you didn't have?
43:36 I don't know.
43:37 What do you mean you don't know?
43:39 I don't know.
43:41 You don't know what you don't know.
43:42 I don't know.
43:43 I don't know what she had and what she didn't have, but I do know that when you look at
43:48 it, and we immediately knew, I mean, anybody immediately knew, one of the first things
43:52 you start thinking about is is this an intelligence failure?
43:54 So think about it.
43:55 We go through January 6th.
43:56 I was begging for the National Guard, refused before, refused during it.
44:00 We get the Capitol under control.
44:03 I get them to where they can go back into session, 730.
44:07 They elect to go in at 8, and then the House goes in at 9, but nonetheless, so think about
44:11 this.
44:12 The very next day, less than 24 hours after we got control of the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi
44:17 goes on national TV, blames the leadership at the top of Capitol Police, calls for my
44:23 resignation on national TV, and then lies about me.
44:26 Okay.
44:27 So the very next day, the very next day, puts Yogananda Pittman as acting chief.
44:34 But Yogananda Pittman, you just described her as the head of intelligence for Capitol
44:39 Police.
44:40 Correct.
44:41 So if there was an intelligence failure, which again, doesn't seem like a failure.
44:44 It seems very intentional to me, but if there was such a failure, she'd be responsible,
44:49 correct?
44:50 Or she'd be in the chain of responsibility anyway.
44:52 Well, I mean, she was the head of intelligence.
44:54 So if there's an intelligence failure, my thing is, do a proper analysis.
45:00 Why do a knee-jerk reaction?
45:01 I mean, putting her in charge, I mean, she ended up getting a vote of no confidence.
45:05 So she didn't get the position from the police officers, because many were upset with what
45:08 happened.
45:09 Where did she wind up?
45:12 Where is she now?
45:13 Yeah.
45:14 She's chief of police for the University of California, Berkeley.
45:16 Interesting.
45:17 So right across from Nancy Pelosi's district.
45:18 That is correct, sir.
45:19 In the Bay Area.
45:20 That is correct.
45:21 So she's going to take the Bay Bridge over there, and that's where she is now.
45:26 What does that position pay, do you know?
45:27 I think it pays pretty well.
45:29 There was a, you know.
45:31 Pays extraordinarily well.
45:32 I'm sure it pays.
45:33 I'm sure it pays pretty good.
45:35 It's interesting.
45:36 There was a hearing just recently that was on TV.
45:40 You can look at it.
45:41 Where the chief of police, Tom Manger, was asked about her position.
45:46 It turns out that she was given some type of a secret leave.
45:50 So she could leave, start her job on February 1st as the chief of police, and not retire
45:55 from the Capitol Police for months later.
45:57 Oh, so she'd get the benefits.
45:59 Yeah, think about that.
46:00 Yeah.
46:01 It appears to be against departmental policy.
46:03 You know, and nobody allegedly was told.
46:05 What you're saying is that the head of intelligence for the Capitol Police, which demonstrably
46:11 didn't have the intelligence it needed to protect the building, that person was first
46:16 elevated to acting chief of Capitol Police and then given a very high-paying job right
46:22 across Nancy Pelosi's district at the University of California, Berkeley.
46:25 That is correct.
46:26 And I will say that.
46:27 So that looks like a reward to me.
46:28 Well, I do know that the unit had significant intelligence.
46:33 And I know many people within the unit were pushing that intelligence up to the leadership
46:36 of the unit.
46:37 So I do know that.
46:39 Many of them became whistleblowers, and many of them were punished and forced to resign.
46:45 Yep.
46:47 This looks like a scam.
46:48 I mean, it's just saying it just gets more convoluted.
46:52 You know, I do.
46:53 I feel so bad for the men and women in the police department, what they went through.
46:55 I feel so bad for the intelligence analysts and what they went through.
46:59 Many of them, you know, it was it was really, really bad.
47:02 I feel bad for the officials that were either demoted, forced to resign over this, forced
47:08 to retire early.
47:10 There's a lot of people that need someone.
47:11 I think an outside entity needs to come in and do some investigation about what what
47:17 went on.
47:18 We already had.
47:19 We already we've had many entities doing investigations.
47:20 I believe we impaneled this committee or commission, this this body of members of Congress that
47:27 went on for about a year and was on the news every single night.
47:31 Did they address any of these questions?
47:33 No, sir.
47:34 How could you how could you have a January 6th commission whose job it is to figure out
47:39 what happened on January 6th, not get to the bottom of like why the head of intelligence
47:44 at Capitol Police didn't pass on the intelligence, why the chief of Capitol Police was kept in
47:48 the dark and denied support from the U.S. military, why Yogananda Pittman wound up after
47:53 failing on January 6th, getting a high paying job right across Nancy Pelosi's district?
47:57 Like who wouldn't ask these questions?
47:59 Yeah, well, I know there's people on the Hill still trying to ask those questions and hopefully
48:04 they can get some good answers.
48:05 But it looks like they keep running into roadblock after roadblock after roadblock.
48:09 But it's hard to believe two and a half years later, we're still at this point.
48:12 I still think somebody along the line is going to find, you know, the smoking gun, the missing
48:16 puzzle piece and put this together.
48:17 But it does when you look at it and there's still so much more to it.
48:21 It just begins to raise more and more questions.
48:23 It's just it's interesting to talk to you because this again, this is my assessment.
48:27 You seem like a very straight arrow guy.
48:29 I try.
48:30 Well, I could it comes off you in waves.
48:33 So and I mean, that's a compliment.
48:35 But how long how long did it take you to realize there's something very strange going on here?
48:41 I knew there was something strange going on pretty, pretty soon when I when I was running
48:45 into the issues with them not wanting me to testify.
48:47 I was like, this is this starts getting a little weird.
48:50 And then when I started sitting down and talking to officers and getting information and finding
48:53 out from some of the some of the intelligence that was out there, where it was and seeing
48:56 some of the emails of the intelligence analysts pushing it up to their officials.
49:00 I knew something was something was fishy.
49:02 I mean, think about it.
49:03 How how can somebody not look at all this and think something is something's odd?
49:07 So I mean, we have a media whose job it is to get to the bottom of questions like these
49:13 are at least to ask the questions of knowledgeable people with relevant experience.
49:18 And you you're at the top of that list.
49:21 We interviewed you never aired at a previous job.
49:25 But how many other long interviews have you done with media outlets?
49:30 Long ones, not not very many.
49:32 But I actually can't think of any.
49:34 I've done 60 minutes.
49:35 That's right.
49:36 About the longest.
49:37 And how long from your 60 minutes interview, how much of your account wound up on television?
49:43 Do you think estimate three or four minutes, three or four minutes, three or four minutes.
49:48 So you're the chief of Capitol Police on January 6th.
49:54 Common sense suggests you'd be the first person that any reporter trying to figure out what
49:58 happened on January 6th would call.
50:02 Good thing.
50:03 Is your cell phone buzzing day and night from curious reporters trying to find the truth?
50:07 No, no, it's it's calmed down.
50:09 I mean, the first couple of days were something else, but it's really it's really calmed down.
50:13 And, you know, I'm not stupid when it comes to law enforcement.
50:14 I've been law enforcement for 30 years.
50:16 I've done everything from capturing homicide suspects to doing, you know, barricade situations.
50:22 This didn't have to happen.
50:24 This was screwed up from the get go.
50:26 Didn't have to happen.
50:27 Numerous opportunities to prevent it from happening.
50:29 Numerous opportunities from preventing my men and women from going through what they
50:31 had to.
50:32 And it never happened.
50:34 There was never that opportunity to stop that train.
50:37 Have you know, there's always a concern that politics will infect law enforcement and the
50:44 justice system more broadly.
50:46 And I think you thought about this is one of the reasons I think you said we need to
50:49 be strictly apolitical in the way we administer law enforcement.
50:54 Does seem like things have changed.
50:57 And it does seem like politics affect the way we enforce the law.
51:00 Does it feel that way to you?
51:02 Yeah.
51:03 And again, you know, one of the that's one of the things that many things that are in
51:06 here I talk about the 2020 riots versus the 20 the January 6th attack.
51:12 The riots in front of the White House for famously St. John's Church was set on fire.
51:16 White House across the country.
51:17 You know, I talk about the White House and I talk about an agency that was formed by
51:22 Congress specifically for the protection of the United States president, the Washington
51:26 D.C. police department.
51:28 The White House is under attack and they are prevented.
51:32 They are prevented.
51:33 I know it's not from Chief Newsham.
51:34 It's from his, you know, he was the chief at the time.
51:36 Would have been from above him.
51:38 They're from prevented from going on White House grounds and helping the United States
51:42 Secret Service in defending the White House.
51:45 So think about that.
51:46 You know, who made that decision?
51:48 Again, all I know is, you know, Newsham's hands were tied.
51:53 So Mayor Bowser higher?
51:55 I don't know.
51:56 But think about somebody told when there and there was real rioting.
51:59 In fact, I think, well, that more officers were injured at that riot than were injured
52:04 on January 6th, I think.
52:05 Yep.
52:06 Yep.
52:07 Again, don't take my word.
52:08 Jail report.
52:09 More officers injured at the protests by the White House and on January 6th.
52:14 And I'm told by Park Police all charges were dropped according to the fighting at Lafayette
52:20 Park and at the White House.
52:22 There were Secret Service agents bloodied and battered over there.
52:25 There was a number of federal agencies that were hurt.
52:28 Structures set on fire.
52:29 They tried to light the Hay-Adams Hotel on fire that was occupied.
52:33 Think about that.
52:34 Charges dropped.
52:36 No such situation.
52:37 I mean, when you look at the disparity of how justice is being applied, again, that's
52:43 scary.
52:44 That becomes really scary when it becomes politicized like that.
52:47 And that's what appears to have happened.
52:48 I mean, it sounds like Trump is the key to all of this.
52:50 If Trump hadn't been the president, things would have been very… responses would have
52:54 been very different, don't you think?
52:56 I mean, if Barack Obama had been president, do you think that someone would have told
53:00 MPD, the Washington, D.C. Police Department, they couldn't protect the White House?
53:04 Again, I don't…
53:05 Protect the White House?
53:06 I don't…
53:07 I see what you're saying there.
53:08 I don't know.
53:09 I mean, I think not.
53:10 Look, I mean, it's a hypothetical…
53:14 I shouldn't ask you to answer hypothetical questions, but it does seem… it seems amazing.
53:21 Last question.
53:22 Thank you for doing this.
53:23 Again, I really appreciate it.
53:24 I think this is important, and I hope that everyone who's interested in January 6th
53:27 and its aftermath, which really has changed the country, will watch this interview.
53:34 But looking back after spending your entire life in law enforcement, how have your views
53:40 changed after January 6th?
53:43 Yeah, that's a big question.
53:47 I mean, my views of law enforcement, I still think law enforcement is a very honorable
53:51 profession.
53:52 I really, really do.
53:54 I think it's being screwed up in a lot of cities.
53:58 I feel bad for a lot of people that are going into it.
54:01 We need good cops, but right now their hands are being tied.
54:05 When you look at what law enforcement's going on, I mean, I was just talking with
54:08 somebody who… one of their officers in Washington, D.C. arrested somebody who went to a scene
54:12 of a robbery, recovered a weapon, recovered somebody else's wallet in possession with
54:17 the suspect, made the arrest, papered a gun, went in a person's pocket during the search,
54:22 found a loaded handgun, went down to papers, no paper.
54:26 No paper.
54:27 Armed hand… armed robbery.
54:28 It means all charges were dropped.
54:31 That's bad.
54:32 That's bad when we're seeing the type of crime that we're seeing in some of these
54:35 cities and they're not prosecuting some of these cases.
54:38 I feel sorry for the officers.
54:39 It's very dangerous for them.
54:42 I still love the profession, still love the officers with the Capitol Police, Washington,
54:47 D.C. Police, still talk to them regularly.
54:50 They're going through a lot, and I just don't think they're getting the backing
54:52 they need.
54:53 No, they're not.
54:54 And the effects on the rest of us are…
54:56 We're seeing it.
54:57 Stephen Sund, former chief of Capitol Police, thank you so much.
55:01 Thank you very much for having me on, sir.
55:26 Thank you.