Pelosi declared in video shot by daughter 'I take responsibility' for Jan. 6 security failures

Moments after being whisked away from the U.S. Capitol after it was breached on Jan. 6, 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was captured on videotape declaring "I take responsibility" for failing to have a better security plan for the complex that fateful day, according to footage released Monday by House GOP investigators.

“We have responsibility, Terri," Pelosi is heard saying on the videotape to her chief of staff, Terri McCullough. "We did not have any accountability for what was going on there, and we should have. This is ridiculous.”



Pelosi also said: “You’re going to ask me – in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached the inaugural stuff – ‘should we call the Capitol Police, I mean the National Guard?’ Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?” 

McCullough, replied as the speaker’s SUV raced through an underground parking garage: “They thought that they had sufficient ... resources." 

Pelosi responded, clearly frustrated: "No, that’s not a question of how they had ... they don’t know. They clearly didn’t know. And I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more.”

Pelosi seemed to be referring to congressional leaders, and McCullough seemed to be referring to the U.S. Capitol Police force.

You can watch the video footage here.

The footage was recorded by Pelosi's daughter Alexandra, who helped HBO shoot a documentary about the Jan 6 riot. But the video was not aired in its entirety until Monday, when Republicans on the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee released it after obtaining it from the TV network.

Pelosi's reaction to the Capitol riot depicted in the footage was reported by Politico on Sunday. However, some of the key quotes above were not included by the outlet, which reviewed the footage independently. 

"Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination. Cherry-picked out-of-context clips don't change that. Three years later, House Republicans are still trying to whitewash January 6th. It’s shameful, unpatriotic and pathetic," a spokesperson for Pelosi told Just the News.

House Republicans, however, said the footage undercut three years of Democrat-led narrative that Jan. 6 and its failures were the sole responsibility of former President Donald Trump and his followers.

"Pelosi’s J6 Select Committee spent taxpayer’s money chasing false political narratives and using Hollywood producers for their ‘investigation,'" Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said in a social media post on X. "Her admission of responsibility directly contradicts their own narrative."