No, Donald Trump didn’t grab the
wheel of his presidential limousine and try to commandeer it. Yes, Nancy
Pelosi felt responsible for security lapses at the Capitol, including
the failure to pre-position National Guard there.
There's no doubt that Trump did in fact order the Pentagon to send
troops to secure the capital city ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021,
certification of electoral votes, but political and military brass
declined to do so. And yes, there were both intelligence and security
blunders by police that led to the breach of one of America’s most
storied buildings.
The last two years of investigations by Congress and Just the News have whipsawed the original, official narrative of what transpired during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Now the man who has helped uncover much of the contradictory
evidence, House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry
Loudermilk, R-Ga., is planning to ask his colleagues to take the
extraordinarily rare step of officially repudiating the December 2022
findings of the Democrat-led House Select Committee to Investigate the Attack on the U.S. Capitol led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and ex-Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming.
“My intention is to bring the House floor a resolution that lays out
all the evidence that we found that contradicts the evidence that they
supposedly or the narrative they put in their report because future
generations need to know, do not use this document that the select
committee produced as any reflection of a historical record,” Loudermilk
told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show on Thursday night.
There is no known vehicle in Congress to formally retract an official
report from an earlier session of the legislative body, so Loudermilk’s
team is aiming to craft legislation that would ask the current members
of Congress to repudiate and disown the prior work of the earlier
committee.
Such a resolution would single out conclusions and declarations of
the Thompson-Cheney driven report -- widely adopted by mainstream media
-- that have since been proven false or misleading and highlight the
specific evidence that gives a more accurate recounting of what
transpired in the days leading up to Jan. 6, during the Capitol breach
and afterward.
The goal, Loudermilk said, is to make sure that future generations of
Americans know that the Democrat Jan. 6 committee had created a
predetermined political story filled with errors and innuendo instead of
a neutral presentation of evidence.
“It's a narrative," he said. "It's more fiction than fact, and we can show that through the evidence that we've uncovered.”
The most recent whipsaw in the narrative occurred last week when Just the News reported that transcripts of bombshell interviews
conducted back in 2021 inside the Pentagon revealed that Trump gave
clear instructions to military officials brass three days before the
Jan. 6 riots to “do whatever it takes” to keep the U.S. Capitol safe,
including deploying National Guard or active-duty troops, but top
officials chose not to comply because of concerns over politics or
optics.
"There is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the
Capitol, period,” acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller told the
Defense Department inspector general during a March 2021 interview that
poignantly captured the defiance of Trump’s order.
The transcripts undercut the Democrat conclusion that Trump meant for
violence to occur at the Capitol while affirming the former president’s
long-held claim he authorized up to 10,000 troops to be deployed in
advance to protect the Capitol and capital city.
Trump claimed vindication in the release of the new documents while praising Loudermilk.
“The Deep State chose to disregard my direct authorization of at
least 10,000 National Guard Troops to ensure that Washington, D.C., was
safe and secure on January 6, 2021,” he wrote on his Truth Social
platform. “These Deep State subversives disobeyed the President’s
directives, which would have prevented any unrest that day – January
6th, as it is known, would never have taken place.”
A few weeks earlier, Just the News reported that belatedly
unearthed video footage of Pelosi exiting the Capitol during the Jan. 6
violence showed the then-House Democratic speaker took direct
responsibility for security lapses at the Capitol, including the failure
to pre-position National Guard there. It was a visual repudiation of
the Democrats’ talking point that they bore no blame for the tragedy
that day.
“We're calling the National Guard now? They should have been here to
start out,” Pelosi can be heard saying as she flees through a tunnel
under the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, as her daughter
Alexandra videotaped her for an eventual HBO movie.
"We will have totally failed. And we've got to take some responsibility," she added in another portion of the tape.
Over the last two years, Just the News uncovered at least a
dozen other major revelations that changed the official Jan. 6 narrative
in ways big and small. Here are some of them:
Key Democratic witness changed her story
In late November 2023, Just the News reported that one of
the Democrats’ key witnesses in the Jan. 6 hearings submitted changes to
her original, closed-door testimony before Jan. 6 Select Committee.
Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows, revised her original February 2022 testimony before the
committee using what are called errata sheets.
The document, reviewed by Just the News, was uncovered by
Loudermilk’s investigation and shows that Hutchinson made significant,
substantive changes to her original testimony.
For example, she changed her infamous story about the "Beast," the
presidential limousine, which purportedly involved an incident in which
Trump was said to have lunged at the driver in anger after his request
to be driven to the Capitol was refused. This is the version of the
story that Hutchinson told Cheney at a public hearing in June 2022. This story was not in her original February testimony.
Secret Service directly contradicts presidential limousine story
Even more shockingly, the Secret Service agents in the car with Trump that day told the Democrat J6 committee long before its report was published that Hutchinson's third-hand account was false and did not happen.
In fact, the transcript of the driver’s testimony reviewed by Just the News shows
his lawyer complained that his client had offered to testify in July,
August and September of 2022, but was “rebuffed” by the committee until
November 2022.
Metro D.C. officer caught on videotape claiming “we go undercover as Antifa”
In November, Just the News obtained new footage
from an undercover Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department
(MPD) officer as he worked behind police lines on Jan. 6. The footage
was recently turned over to Loudermilk’s committee.
The video shows the officer giving water to his fellow police
officers who were suffering from the effects of tear gas, which the
Capitol Police had deployed against the pro-Trump protestors.
While helping his fellow officer, the plainclothes, undercover
officer told his colleague, “We go undercover as Antifa in a crowd.”
Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz hinted last week
it is possible that FBI undercover agents and informants were also in
the crowd, though he declined to be more specific until he finishes his
investigation.
Government Accountability Office concludes intelligence failures
In February this year, the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress concluded
that the Capitol Police, the FBI, and eight other federal agencies had
gathered intelligence that certain extremists were planning to commit
violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 but that they failed to adapt security
protocols and get threat assessments to key decision-makers.
"Some agencies did not fully process information or share it,
preventing critical information from reaching key federal entities
responsible for securing the National Capital Region against threats,"
the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in the February report.
GAO reserved its harshest criticism for the Capitol Police, which is
the lead agency in charge of security at the Capitol complex, according
to Just the News’ previous reporting. “Capitol Police did not
share threat products with its frontline officers," the watchdog
concluded, imploring Congress to press those agencies to change failed
practices and procedures to avoid a repeat tragedy.
Secret Service missteps put Kamala Harris within yards of a bomb
In July, Just the News reported on two missteps by the Secret Service surrounding Jan. 6: the deletion of Jan. 6-related text messages and the Secret Service’s decision to bring Vice President-elect Kamala Harris within yards of where a pipe bomb was found.
In a letter to two congressional committees last year, the Department
of Homeland Security inspector general said that the U.S. Secret
Service had informed his office that “many… text messages, from January 5
and 6, 2021, were erased as part of a device-replacement program.”
Most importantly, “The USSS erased those text messages after
OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS, as
part of our evaluation of events at the Capitol,” the letter continued.
The Secret Service denied that there was any “malicious" intent behind
the deletion, but that it was part of a scheduled “technology system
change.”
The same month, Just the News reported that security footage
from the Capitol complex shows that the Secret Service brought Vice
President-elect Kamala Harris into a garage at the Democratic National
Committee on Jan. 6, just yards away from where a pipe bomb was planted
the night before by an unidentified subject, who has yet to be found by
law enforcement.
Capitol door left unlocked, unguarded
This summer, Just the News obtained footage showing a door on the west side of the U.S. Capitol was left open and unguarded, allowing more than 300 protesters to enter the building during the height of the riot.
The footage shows that the door was unlocked after Capitol Police
directed a small number of intruders already in the building towards an
emergency door, marked by a sign. After a few of the intruders exit the
doors, they remain unlocked, permitting hundreds of protestors to enter
the building unchecked with no police presence at the entryway.
After Capitol Police arrived at the doors, they did not block the
entryway and rioters continued to flow unimpeded into the building, even
as police elsewhere attempted to hold out the mass of protesters.
According to Just the News’ reporting this summer, current
and former Capitol Police officers as well as congressional aides
briefed on security said the video footage shows a powerful lesson to be
learned, since it did not involve a forced breach but rather a fateful
decision to move a few intruders through the emergency doors.
Videotape evidence has gone missing
Recently, the congressman leading the House Republican investigation into Jan. 6 told Just the News
that tapes of the interviews of key witnesses were not preserved by the
Jan. 6 Select Committee, instituted by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to
investigate the riot on that day.
“I wrote a letter to Bennie Thompson asking for them and he confirmed
that they did not preserve those tapes. He didn’t feel that they had
to,” Rep. Loudermilk, whose subcommittee is investigating the January 6
response and the Democratic committee’s work, told the "Just the News,
No Noise" TV show last month. “But according to House rules,
you have to preserve any data and any information and documents that are
used in an official proceeding.”
Metro Police had plainclothes officers in the crowd, seen exhorting protestors on video
In June, Loudermilk told Just the News that the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to Congress that it had plainclothes officers at the Capitol on January 6 and at least one of those officers was caught on video exhorting the crowd.
Loudermilk confirmed that a video leaked to the Rumble video platform
was authentic and confirmed that MPD officers were in the crowd. “We
know that it is one of their officers and at one point he is
encouraging, and it appears he's encouraging, he’s definitely helping
people climb the scaffolding, and he's telling them go, go, go,”
Loudermilk told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show in June.
You can watch the video here.
Nancy Pelosi's daughter allowed to accompany, videotape her mother during Capitol evacuation
Capitol Police security footage obtained by Just the News
in June shows Pelosi, then-House speaker, exited Hollywood-style from
the home of Congress that fateful day with her daughter filming her as
security officers tried to guide her through a secret safe passage
corridor.
The footage, made available by McCarthy and aired for the first time on the "Just the News, No Noise" television
show on Real America's Voice, provides three different angles of
Pelosi's evacuation the afternoon of Jan. 6. Each shows her daughter
Alexandra roving around her mother's delegation with a camera as they
moved briskly through corridors, led by members of the Capitol Police
protective detail.
The video shows Pelosi was not in jeopardy after fleeing the breached
Capitol chamber, because the footage shows no protesters or rioters
penetrated the evacuation route. Capitol Police confirmed to Congress
the woman holding the camera in the footage was Alexandra.
Steven Sund, the former Capitol Police chief, who resigned after the Jan. 6 calamity, said he was deeply concerned that Pelosi's actions that day put an unnecessary strain and created a dangerous distraction for her security detail.
"The protective detail isn't there to protect media. And whoever else
was there with her for the sole purpose of videotaping creates a major
distraction for the protective detail," he added. "You know, they don't
train to protect those additional people."
