Speaker’s office denies accusation, pointing to statement that dismisses the request as ‘pure revisionist fiction’
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is ignoring a demand from the top Republican on the House Administration Committee for documents and messages with important details of key decisions she made before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, incursion at the U.S. Capitol.
“The events of January 6, 2021, exposed serious security vulnerabilities at the Capitol Complex. Unfortunately, over the past 12 months, House Democrats have been more interested in exploiting the events of January 6th for political purposes than in conducting basic oversight of the security vulnerabilities exposed that day,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) told Pelosi in a Jan. 3 letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Epoch Times. Davis is the ranking minority member of the administration panel.
“Republicans have sought to conduct this oversight ourselves, including understanding House officials’ preparedness for and response to the violence on January 6th. However, these House officials, who are appointed by and answer only to you, have blocked our access to key records necessary for this oversight,” Davis told Pelosi.
“Accordingly, we write to demand that you instruct all House officers to immediately cease obstructing our oversight of the Capitol complex’s security vulnerabilities,” he said. Davis first requested the documents in February 2021, a few weeks after the incident that saw several hundred protestors penetrate the Capitol, including the Senate and House chambers.
The documents being sought, Davis told Pelosi, are “necessary for our oversight, especially considering key assertions made by former [United States Capitol Police] (USCP) Chief Steven Sund that he communicated with then-House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving about preparations for January 6th.”
“In a letter to you, Chief Sund wrote that he approached Mr. Irving in advance of January 6th to ‘request the assistance of the National Guard.’ Chief Sund recounted how Mr. Irving ‘stated that he was concerned about the “optics” of National Guard troops being present at the Capitol.’”
Davis said that Sund “detailed other briefings and communications with senior officials in advance of and during the violence, including a conversation with Mr. Irving during the violence about authorizing the National Guard, in which Mr. Irving stated that ‘he needed to run it up the chain of command.’ Chief Sund’s assertions highlight the importance of understanding what direction, if any, Mr. Irving received with respect to the preparations and response to the January 6th violence.”
Irving strenuously denied Sund’s account of their conversations while testifying before a Senate committee last year. When Irving was asked by two senators for documentation of his denial, his attorneys provided only summaries of the requested materials, not the documents themselves.
Davis told reporters during a conference call earlier this week that “the House sergeant at arms, at the direction of the Speaker, has refused to provide us their communications surrounding January 6. What everybody should be asking is, ‘What is Speaker Pelosi hiding?’”
