XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.usa.congress, alt.politics.trump   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.politics.republicans, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: democrat-criminals@mail.house.gov   
      
   https://nypost.com/2022/12/21/house-gop-report-faults-nancy-pelosi-for-   
   jan-6-security-failures/   
      
   House Republicans issued a scathing report Wednesday exposing House   
   Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s key role in the catastrophic security and   
   intelligence failures that left the US Capitol vulnerable to a violent   
   attack on January 6, 2021.   
      
   Days after Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select committee recommended insurrection   
   charges against former president Donald Trump over the Capitol riot,   
   Republicans have hit back with a counter-investigation apportioning blame   
   for the internal security breakdown on Jan. 6 to Pelosi and a   
   dysfunctional Capitol Police intelligence division.   
      
   “Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the   
   complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021,” says the report, which is based on   
   a trove of texts and email messages, and testimony from Capitol Police   
   leaders and rank-and-file officers.   
      
   House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, who answered to Pelosi as one of three   
   voting members of the Capitol Police Board, “succumbed to political   
   pressures from the Office of Speaker Pelosi and House Democrat   
   leadership,” was “compromised by politics and did not adequately prepare   
   for violence at the Capitol.”   
      
   Pelosi and her staff “coordinated closely” with Irving on security plans   
   for the Joint Session of Congress on Jan. 6, but Republicans were   
   deliberately left out of “important discussions related to security.”   
      
   And, in an apparent attempt to hide from Republicans the fact that they   
   were being excluded from discussions, Irving asked a senior Democratic   
   staffer to “act surprised” when he sent “key information about plans for   
   the Joint Session on Jan. 6, 2021, to him and his Republican counterpart.”   
      
   The staffer replied sardonically: “I’m startled!”   
      
   The report also claims that “staff within the House Sergeant at Arms   
   office emailed Paul Irving that January 6th was Pelosi’s fault,” although   
   it provides no evidence for the assertion.   
      
   When Irving was forced to resign after the riot, an email from an unnamed   
   staffer in his office criticized Pelosi’s “knee-jerk reaction to   
   yesterday’s unprecedented event” and described his resignation as   
   “spectacularly unjust, unfair, and unwarranted. This is not your fault. Or   
   [Capitol Police chief Steven] Sund’s fault.”   
      
   The Republicans responsible for the withering report — Jim Banks (R-IN),   
   Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) and Troy   
   Nehls (R-TX) — are the five congressmen originally nominated to sit on the   
   Jan. 6 committee, until Pelosi vetoed Banks and Jordan. House Minority   
   Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled the rest of his nominees in protest. Pelosi   
   then installed two Never Trump Republican outcasts, Liz Cheney, and Adam   
   Kinzinger.   
      
   Given Pelosi’s assiduous grooming of Cheney, no doubt it suited both their   
   interests to focus the final Jan.6 committee report on Trump — and not on   
   Pelosi’s culpability.   
      
   But now the Republicans Pelosi rejected have skewered her in their rival   
   report, dredging up some of what she tried to hide, despite complaining of   
   obstruction from the personnel she controls.   
      
   The report insinuates that the Speaker left the Capitol Police without   
   backup on Jan. 6 because “widespread concern from Democratic leadership   
   over ‘optics’ in the aftermath of the Summer 2020 ‘Black Lives Matter’   
   protests prevented early deployment of the National Guard.”   
      
   Chief Sund begged repeatedly for troops but has testified that Irving   
   rebuffed him over concern about “optics.” During the violence on Jan. 6,   
   Sund repeated his request, but help was delayed until after the riot   
   ended, because Irving needed to run it up the chain of command, a.k.a.   
   Pelosi.   
      
   “The Speaker’s office was heavily involved in planning and decision-making   
   before and during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and micromanaged the   
   Sergeant at Arms.”   
      
   From early December 2020, Pelosi aides attended regular meetings with   
   Irving and Sund to discuss the security plan. So hands-on was Pelosi’s   
   chief of staff Terri McCullough that, at one point, she was editing   
   details of parking, event timing and “language regarding official business   
   visitors” for the Joint Session.   
      
   To illustrate the intense involvement of Pelosi’s office, on Jan. 6 alone,   
   the report records 36 communications between Irving and Pelosi staffers,   
   including 11 with McCullough, and 20 with Jamie Fleet, a Pelosi aide who   
   doubled as a Democratic staff director.   
      
   Pelosi’s repeated assertions that she has “no power over the Capitol   
   Police” are rejected.   
      
   “This is false,” says the report. “Documents provided by [current] House   
   Sergeant at Arms show how then-House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving carried   
   out his duties in clear deference to the Speaker, her staff, and other   
   Democratic staff . . .   
      
   “House Rules dictate . . . that the Sergeant at Arms is to report directly   
   to the Speaker of the House.”   
      
   Indeed, the report says that Pelosi regularly exercised her authority over   
   security matters, “when she directed the use of magnetometers outside the   
   House chamber in the name of safety . . . Similarly, she required masks in   
   the House chamber [and] exerted influence on security protocols at the   
   Capitol related to the perimeter fence . . . She also oversaw the fencing   
   that was erected for a purported rally on September 18, 2021, that never   
   materialized.”   
      
   The report of the Republican refuseniks is an appetizer to potential   
   future investigations next year when they regain subpoena power. It makes   
   sensible recommendations to prevent another disaster, including reform and   
   oversight of the Capitol Police Board.   
      
   Far from being a revenge ploy, it identifies security flaws it claims have   
   not been remedied, including the breakdown of intelligence that had the   
   Capitol Police (USCP) flying blind and hopelessly outnumbered when   
   “criminal rioters assaulted police officers, broke into the U.S. Capitol,   
   damaged property, and temporarily interfered with … the Joint Session of   
   Congress.”   
      
   The Capitol Police Intelligence Division “failed to warn USCP leadership   
   and line officers about the threat of violence,” despite having “obtained   
   sufficient information from an array of channels to anticipate and prepare   
   for the violence.”   
      
   In fact, the final intelligence threat assessment three days before the   
   riot did warn of a violent scenario in which “Congress itself” could be   
   attacked by armed Trump supporters. But the warning was buried towards the   
   end of the 15-page document and was not included in the up-front summary,   
   so was overlooked.  Nor was the warning mentioned in three subsequent   
   daily intelligence reports.   
      
   The Republicans blame much of the intelligence failure on the assistant   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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