by John Solomon
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 U.S. Capitol 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.
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.”
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John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News.
