‘He’s got to pay a price for that’: Nancy Pelosi expressed desire for vengeance against Donald Trump on J6

“I just feel sick about what he did to the Capitol and the country today. He's got a price to pay for that," Pelosi said from the backseat of her SUV on Jan. 7, 2021, in 50 minutes of video filmed by her daughter Alexandra Pelosi, and analyzed by Politico. The footage is now in the hands of the Republican-led House Committee on Administration which is highly critical of the selective assessment made by the January 6 committee.

The latest footage from Pelsoi’s daughter shows Pelosi being evacuated from the riot by Capitol police. She asked whether then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had moved on a request to call in the National Guard and learned that he had.

Pelosi suggested that she did not want to be evacuated from the scene: “I did not appreciate this,” she said.

“I do not support this. If they stop the proceedings, they will have succeeded in stopping the validation of the presidency of the United States,” she said, then blamed the Capitol police for not being prepared.

“I just don’t understand it. Why do we empower people this way by not being ready?” Pelosi asked before obsessing over Trump’s potential influence over the situation and entering the security zone of Fort McNair with other lawmakers.

“How quick can Trump pardon them?” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked while watching video of the proceedings. Nearby, Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and other House leaders Steny Hoyer (D-MD.) and James Clyburn (D-SC) said nothing. Trump did not pardon any of the participants but after almost four years of the FBI continuing to persecute everyone associated with the event, he has indicated that he would seek pardons if reelected as president.

“We shouldn’t let him off the hook, Nancy. We issued a statement saying he’s got to make a statement. He comes up with this BS,” Schumer said. “Typical Trump,” Hoyer echoed, to which Pelosi said “Insurrection. That’s a crime, and he’s guilty of it.”

By the following day, Pelosi had decided to make Trump the focus of her news conference by declaring the president a dangerous man who was responsible for “an armed insurrection against America.” When her communications director, Henry Connelly, told Pelosi to demand the resignation of Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, Pelosi replied: “I think our focus has to be on the president. Let’s not divert ourselves,” even while admitting, “I never liked Sund. I think he should’ve been gone a long time ago.”

Pelosi wasn’t yet sure she could promise that Democrats would impeach Trump because she wasn’t sure how much support she had for that action.

The House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, which is leading the Jan. 6-focused investigation, issued a statement criticizing Pelosi for shifting “the focus of the failure on President Trump” instead of taking “responsibility for her failure to secure the Capitol grounds on January 6,” Politico noted.

Later in Pelosi’s office, Pelosi continued to talk about blame and decided it was due to a broad “failure of leadership at the top of the Capitol Police” and House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, whom Pelosi declared should go because he could “blow it” again.

Pelosi moved on to her declared aim of using the 25th Amendment against Trump and having him declared incapable of performing the functions of the presidency. She asked for a list of Trump’s cabinet officers so she could encourage them to remove the president, whom she called “a domestic enemy in the White House.”

“Let’s not mince words about this,” Pelosi said as she read a statement from former Bush administration Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who called for Trump to resign or be forced out of office.

“Good for him,” she said.

A number of Jan. 6 protesters have recently been released from prison. John Strand, who was in jail for 32 months in prison for his involvement, had his freedom restored following a Supreme Court ruling that dismissed the obstruction charge for the January 6 participants.