Nancy Pelosi said that as rioters raged inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, she was concerned about the Secret Service’s treatment of then-Vice President Mike Pence.
“I myself wondered if he could trust the Secret Service to take him to a safe place. I don’t know,” she told MSNBC Tuesday.
Pelosi’s perspective: The speaker’s comments to Andrea Mitchell offer eye-opening insight about her mindset as she sheltered at Fort McNair during the pro-Trump riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence remained under guard in a loading dock beneath the Capitol during the six hours the building remained in lockdown, and his aides said he refused to get into a Secret Service vehicle at the behest of his detail. But they’ve also said he was primarily worried about giving the rioters a victory by pushing him to flee — and Pence aides haven’t echoed concerns about his potential danger at the hands of the Secret Service.
Evidence released by the Jan. 6 select committee showed some Secret Service agents fearful for their own safety as they worked to secure an escape route for Pence while rioters closed in on the Senate chamber, coming within just 40 feet of the then-VP and his detail. The committee has also displayed images and audio of Pence working to coordinate with security services to retake the Capitol from his secure location.
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What panel members have said: Pelosi’s comments come as Jan. 6 select committee members raise questions about the Secret Service’s actions leading up to and during the attack. In recent days, lawmakers have also suggested agents gave inconsistent testimony and are preparing to call some back to testify. And they’re still sifting through over a million records turned over by the Secret Service.
“There is something going on at the Secret Service, either pure incompetence, all the way on the scale to potentially very criminal activity … or just having a preference for one side or the other,” select panel member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Monday on CNN.
The agency has been a target of the select panel’s investigation for months, and its members have viewed the agency with skepticism since the revelation of a mass deletion of internal messages around Jan. 6.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has described Pence’s refusal to get into his Secret Service vehicle as one of the most chilling moments the committee has explored — a subtle echo of the concerns Pelosi aired on MSNBC. But Pence has made no allegations about the motives of any Secret Service officials, in fact hailing law enforcement for its role in protecting him, lawmakers and the Capitol.
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<p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Nancy Pelosi said that as rioters raged inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, she was concerned about the Secret Service's treatment of then-Vice President Mike Pence.https://t.co/L3OLSPmct2</p>— Congress Minutes (@politicongress) October 18, 2022
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