Fact-Checking Republican Claims Blaming Pelosi for Jan. 6

U.S.|Republicans are blaming Nancy Pelosi for the Jan. 6 attack. Their claims don’t adhd up.

• July 27, 2021, 2:57 p.m. ET

For months, Republican leaders person downplayed the Jan. 6 battle connected the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. But connected Tuesday, up of the archetypal proceeding of a peculiar committee to analyse the riot, they took their attack to caller and misleading extremes, falsely blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence.

“The American radical merit to cognize the information that Nancy Pelosi bears work arsenic talker of the House for the calamity that occurred connected Jan. 6,” said Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York and the party’s No. 3 leader.

It amounted to an audacious effort to rewrite the worst onslaught connected the Capitol successful 2 centuries and pre-empt the damning grounds of 4 constabulary officers who were brutalized by the mob of Donald J. Trump’s supporters. Here’s however Republicans twisted the facts.

Pelosi is not liable for securing the Capitol.

Looking past the motivations of the mob oregon Mr. Trump, Republicans said it had been up to Ms. Pelosi and her enactment squad to support the Capitol from the attack, peculiarly fixed that quality gathered successful the weeks earlier it occurred pointed to the imaginable for unit against Congress.

“On Jan. 6, these brave offers were enactment into a vulnerable, intolerable presumption due to the fact that the enactment astatine the apical has failed,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the number leader.

Ms. Pelosi has sizeable power arsenic the speaker, but she is not liable for the information of Congress. That is the occupation of the Capitol Police, an bureau Ms. Pelosi lone indirectly influences. Most decisions astir securing the Capitol are made by the Capitol Police Board, a assemblage that consists of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the Architect of the Capitol.

Ms. Pelosi shares power of the Capitol with the Senate bulk leader, who astatine the clip was Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky. Republicans person made nary effort to blasted Mr. McConnell for the information breach oregon for failing to hole for attack.

That complaint besides contradicts a bipartisan study produced by a brace of Senate committees that recovered grounds of systematic failures crossed American intelligence, subject and instrumentality enforcement agencies, which misjudged the menace starring up to Jan. 6 and were not decently trained to respond to it.

It besides flatly contradicted legislature testimony, quality reports and nationalist accounts of that day, erstwhile Ms. Pelosi herself was 1 of the premier targets of the rioters, immoderate of whom stalked the halls of the Capitol chanting ominously, “Nancy…Where are you Nancy?”

Pelosi does not power National Guard requests for the Capitol.

Mr. McCarthy and others said that Ms. Pelosi had refused pleas by the Capitol Police to supply backup, similar the National Guard, up of Jan. 6.

But the talker of the House does not power the National Guard. And portion Congress could person requested enactment successful advance, that determination lies with the Capitol Police Board, not the speaker.

Members of the Capitol Police committee person provided conflicting accounts of a statement that occurred connected Jan. 4 implicit whether to petition the assistance successful advance. Steven A. Sund, past the main of Capitol Police, has said helium asked the committee for the pre-emptive assistance but was rebuffed.

Among the reasons cited, Mr. Sund said, was a interest by the House sergeant-at-arms, Paul D. Irving, astir the “optics” of bringing successful reinforcements. Ms. Stefanik falsely attributed that interest to Ms. Pelosi, whose aides person said she lone learned of the petition days later.

A Times investigation elaborate wherefore it took astir 2 hours to o.k. the deployment connected Jan 6. After rioters breached the Capitol, Chief Sund called Mr. Irving astatine 1:09 p.m. with an urgent petition for the National Guard. Mr. Irving approached Ms. Pelosi’s unit with the petition astatine 1:40 p.m., and her main of unit relayed it to her astatine 1:43 p.m., erstwhile she approved it. But it would beryllium hours much earlier Pentagon officials signed off connected the deployment and informed the District of Columbia National Guard commandant that helium had support to deploy the troops.

Pelosi was not briefed astir informing signs earlier the attack.

Republicans repeatedly said that Ms. Pelosi had been warned arsenic aboriginal arsenic mid-December that demonstrations were being planned for Jan. 6 astir Congress’s associated league to number the electoral votes.

That appeared to beryllium a notation to aboriginal quality reports and warnings that began to circulate wrong the Capitol Police connected Dec. 14, which were evidently ne'er shared wide capable to beryllium acted upon.

But Ms. Pelosi’s aides accidental she was not briefed astatine the clip astir the threat, and the Senate’s associated study recovered that the warning signs were mixed astatine best until conscionable days earlier the attack.

Senators — Republicans and Democrats alike — alternatively said the blasted was with the Capitol Police and quality agencies for failing to decently measure and pass astir the threats.