CNN
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The morning after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was clear: She wanted the focus to be on removing Donald Trump from office.
Sitting in a car on the way to the Capitol, Pelosi's senior aide Drew Hammill was reading a draft of her opening speech to the speaker over the phone, which included a demand for the resignation of Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. Pelosi stopped him.
“I think our focus should be on the president. We should not be distracted,” Pelosi said, according to documentary footage shot by her daughter Alexandra Pelosi that was submitted to Congress by HBO and obtained by CNN.
When Hammill pointed out to her that the press was focused on the police chief, Pelosi responded: “I don’t want to see this as the equivalent of insurrection and impeachment and everything else.”
Alexandra Pelosi has been releasing documentaries on HBO for decades, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery – the parent company of CNN. Pelosi's documentary on her mother was released in 2022.
Recently surfaced videos provide even more detailed information about the Speaker's actions and actual reaction at the time of the attack on the Capitol. The latest batch of footage submitted to Congress includes shots of Nancy Pelosi on January 5, 6, and 7, including her exit from the Capitol and evacuation to Fort McNair.
The footage is a fresh reminder that nearly four years later, there are still battles over the history of January 6. Republicans on Capitol Hill have previously released security videos, along with footage shot by Alexandra Pelosi, as they have sought to undermine the Democratic-led January 6 committee, exonerate Trump and instead blame Pelosi for the security failures that led to the Capitol breach.
While Trump and his allies in Congress have repeatedly pointed the finger at Pelosi, the Speaker of the House is not in charge of Capitol security. That is the responsibility of the Capitol Police Board, which oversees the US Capitol Police and approves requests for National Guard assistance.
GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia is leading the GOP effort to investigate the 2021 Capitol attack, including probing the actions of a Democratic-led select committee from the previous Congress and security failures that day. Loudermilk's panel has alleged that the previous January 6 committee hid witness transcripts from the public, undermining some of his most explosive claims about the insurrection.
The fight over January 6 is still playing out in the courts. On Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith filed an amended indictment against the former president in a bid to restart the January 6 case, which was on hold following the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity.
When asked by CNN about the new footage submitted to Congress, Alexandra Pelosi said: “Hope you like the cinematography: backwards and in heels! Now if you need reference, go watch Pelosi in The House! Now streaming on HBO!”
The clips, which total nearly an hour, show the speaker and her staff discussing her press conference in which she called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, as well as Pelosi leaving the Capitol in her car on the morning of January 7, after Biden was finally certified just after 3:30 p.m.
“I just feel bad thinking about what he did to the Capitol and to the country today,” Pelosi said when asked how she felt about being done with Trump. “He's going to pay a price for that.”
The footage also details Pelosi's frantic evacuation from the US Capitol to Fort McNair with other Democratic leaders and builds on previous footage showing how congressional leaders attempted to suppress the insurrection and certify the 2020 election on January 6.
When the speaker was told she would have to vacate the Capitol, Pelosi said, “I don't appreciate that.”
As she left the House to her SUV accompanied by her security personnel and senior staff, the Speaker lamented that by delaying the official election certification proceedings, it appeared the rioters had succeeded in their mission.
“If they stop the proceedings, they will have succeeded in stopping the validation of the president of the United States,” Pelosi said.
He then questioned why security officials did not anticipate the level of violence that occurred on January 6 and asked why the National Guard was not called in earlier.
“How many times have members asked, ‘Are we ready? Are we prepared?’ We are not prepared for the worst,” Pelosi said. “We’re calling in the National Guard now? This should have started here. I don’t understand it. Why do we empower people like this without being prepared?”
In addition to repeatedly asking if the National Guard was coming, Pelosi turned to her chief of staff, Terry McCullough, and said, “I feel responsible,” adding: “Terry, we have responsibility. We had no accountability for what was going on there, when we should have. It's ridiculous.”
Pelosi said the National Guard “clearly did not know” what was going to happen on Jan. 6, adding, “I take responsibility for not preparing them more. Because that's stupid.”
“We should be ashamed,” the speaker said as he headed toward Fort McNair.
Footage from Jan. 7 shows Pelosi criticizing the Capitol Police chief in front of her staff without a filter. “I never liked Sund. I think he should have left a long time ago,” she says, also explaining why she didn't want to include it in her prepared remarks about Trump.
Upon arriving at the Capitol on the morning of January 7, Pelosi told her staff to modify their rhetoric about impeaching Trump.
“We can't say we're going to impeach him. We can say, 'We're going to ask for it.' We don't know because not everybody is with us on this issue,” Pelosi says.
Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer initially called on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. When he did not do so, they began impeachment proceedings a week later.
Several clips show Pelosi chatting with her top aides ahead of a press conference that day. As they were discussing how to deal with the House Sergeant at Arms, Paul Irving, Pelosi asked a senior aide to call him to tell him what she was going to say at her upcoming press conference that he had offered his resignation. Another clip shows the aide returning to confirm that Irving had offered his resignation.
But Pelosi's harshest criticisms have been reserved for Trump.
“There is a domestic enemy in the White House,” she tells her staff when they are discussing her comments. “And words should not be minced about that.”