WASHINGTON — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection presented previously unseen video Thursday of congressional leaders pleading for help from governors, the acting secretary of defense and the acting attorney general as rioters attacked the Capitol.
The video montage began with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walking through the Capitol flanked by security guards at 2:23 p.m. ET after the Capitol was breached. The footage was shot by Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, a source familiar told NBC News.
"We have got to get to finish the proceedings or else they will have a complete victory," Pelosi said to someone, who wasn't identified, on her cellphone.
"There has to be some way we can maintain the sense that people have that there is some security or some confidence that government can function and that you can elect the president of the United States," Pelosi says later in the clip, with House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., standing next to her.
Pelosi was then informed that people who were still on the House floor were putting on tear gas masks to prepare for a breach. "Do you believe this?" Pelosi said to Clyburn.
The next clip showed a crowd of Trump supporters outside what appeared to be Pelosi's leadership office near the House floor. "We're coming in if you don't bring her out!" one woman yelled.
"I'm going to call up the effing secretary of DoD," then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, referring to the Department of Defense, while sitting next to Pelosi in another undisclosed room at 3 p.m. The two Democrats were seen calling then-Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller on Schumer's flip phone, requesting a "massive" response.
The video also showed Pelosi speaking to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in which she wondered if he could deploy his state's National Guard troops to the Capitol. She told Northam that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was making the same request of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. Schumer and Pelosi were also seen on the phone with Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen asking for him to get President Donald Trump to call off his supporters.
"Why don’t you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility — a public statement they should all leave?" Schumer said.
One of the central questions lingering after the attack was why it took so long for National Guard troops to provide the overwhelmed Capitol Police officers with backup. Trump and his allies have repeatedly blamed Pelosi, with Trump telling The Washington Post in April, "I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn’t she doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it? And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge."
The video from Thursday's hearing shows Pelosi and other congressional leaders repeatedly asking for help from law enforcement.
Eventually, the video showed Pelosi and Schumer in a room with GOP congressional leaders at the time: Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., then the majority leader; House GOP Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.; and Senate GOP Whip John Thune, R-S.D.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate Democratic whip, appeared in another clip with leaders.
At 4:22 p.m., Pelosi was on the phone with Vice President Mike Pence, who was in a separate secure location. She told Pence that they had spoken to McConnell about expediting the process of certifying the 2020 electoral votes.
"What we are being told very directly is it’s going to take days for the Capitol to be OK again," Pelosi told Pence. "We’ve gotten a very bad report about the condition of the House floor. There’s defecation and all that kind of thing. I don’t think that’s hard to clean up, but I do think it’s more from a security standpoint making sure everybody is out of the building and how long will that take."
At 5:59 p.m., Pence spoke with Pelosi and Schumer on the phone and said he was standing with the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police who had just told him that congressional leaders would hear through official channels that the House and Senate would be able to reconvene "in roughly an hour."
"Good news," Schumer and Pelosi both said.
Members were seen returning to the Capitol at 7:13 p.m. to finish the process of certifying the 2020 election results.
