Hello, and welcome to Heroes Behind the Badge.

We tell real stories about real cops, we expose the fake news about police,

and we give you the real truth.

This podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge, the leading

voice of the American people in support of the men and women of law enforcement

dedicated to ending the disastrous movement to defund and defame the police.

I'm your host.

I'm Dennis Collins, a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.

Today, I'm joined by my colleagues, Bill Erfurth and Craig Floyd.

Bill is a retired Miami Dade police lieutenant with 26

years of decorated service.

He is also a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.

Craig Floyd is the founder and president and CEO of Citizens Behind the Badge.

Many of you may know Craig as the founding CEO emeritus of the National

Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

It was Craig who led the teams that built the Law Enforcement Memorial

and the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C. No one has

worked longer or harder than Craig to advocate and support law enforcement.

So, In today's episode, we feature part two of our three part series

featuring a conversation with former U. S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

I hope you were able to hear part one.

Steve started his law enforcement career with the Metro Washington, D.C. Police.

He held numerous leadership positions over his 25 year career.

Metro PD's SOD special operations division handling all the major events,

security operations, and he helped coordinate the security for all the many

high profile events in the D.C. area.

Steve moved over to the U. S. Capitol police in 2017.

He was promoted to chief in 2019.

He was the chief during the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.

Steve is also a member of the Citizens Behind the Badge Law

Enforcement Advisory Council.

He wrote a book called Courage Under Fire.

He offers an incredibly detailed and thorough documentation

of the events leading up to, during, and after the incident.

This second episode today, Chief Sund offers us his account inside

January 6, the step by step, minute by minute, as it happened.

Here's part two of our conversation with chief Steven Sund.

I was just going to go back to January 6th and the day of, uh, and

you cited some of the things that were happening that day, but I'm looking at

your book and at 12:20 PM, that's when you first got word that a hundred proud boys

were marching toward the Capitol, which was unexpected, I guess, based on your

intelligence prior that you said nobody would be marching on the Capitol or to

the Capitol, and you also heard rumors that President Trump had indicated he was

going to come to the Capitol that day.

I assume this is when all the red flags and the alarms

were going off in your mind.

You were sitting, I guess, in the command center, uh, watching and

listening to all these reports coming in.

What, what was your initial reaction when you started to realize this thing

was not going the way you had planned?

We, we, we anticipated like MAGA 2 when they

marched up the Supreme Court.

By the capitol.

We anticipated that they were gonna march up to the capitol.

So having groups come up to the capitol was not unanticipated.

We had expected them to march up there.

We just didn't expect 'em to, uh, start attacking my officers like they did.

Um, many in the group, we can talk about that.

'cause I don't believe it was, uh, the entire groups.

I think you had a small group of, uh, what we call es disturbers, uh, in there.

But needless to say, the Proud Boys came up.

I remember being in the command center, them saying, "hey, we've got a group

of Proud Boys coming up." They kind of marched, uh, up one of the, um, uh, around

one of the roadways, uh, by the Capitol.

We watched them kind of come around toward the east front of the Capitol

um, and then I believe they, they disappeared and went down, back down

toward the mall again, uh, after that.

And then shortly after that, we ended up having our first pipe bomb over at the,

um, Capitol Hill Club, the Republican, excuse me, Republican National Committee.

There were actually two pipe bombs as I recall.

I mean, you're dealing with a mob coming, uh, to attack your officers and take

over the Capitol, but you're also hearing reports of two pipe bombs that had been

planted, one at the, uh, Republican National Committee headquarters, one at

the Democratic National Headquarters.

You heard about a car that was found with, loaded with guns and, uh,

ammunition and all sorts of bad devices.

Um, you were dealing with a lot more than just the riot.

It was incredible to me that somehow you were able to coordinate and manage

all of this as chaos was erupting.

And it's interesting right around 12-noon things started, you

know, kind of speeding up a little bit.

12 00:05:19

36 we had Vice President Pence's motorcade arrived because he's, you

12 00:05:24

know, he's the head of the Senate.

12 00:05:25

He's the deciding vote on the Senate.

12 00:05:28

So he was there overseeing the certification of the vote.

So 12 00:05:32

36, his motorcade arrives, watch it arrive, see him get escorted into

So 12 00:05:37

the Senate carriage and then 12:43.

So 12 00:05:41

You know, I'm sitting in the command center, I'm kind of watching everything

So 12 00:05:44

and we're seeing the large crowds down by the, uh, the ellipse, and I look

So 12 00:05:47

over to my left and I see, um, my watch commander, um, John Wisham, Lieutenant

So 12 00:05:52

John Wisham, who was previously one of my bomb squad commanders, just may

So 12 00:05:56

happen to be, be that way, but I see him looking at his phone and he keeps looking

So 12 00:06:00

back at me and it's one of those things where you can tell, uh, something's up.

So 12 00:06:03

He's talking to somebody.

So 12 00:06:04

Something's up.

So 12 00:06:05

And finally I see a image come up on a cell phone and I see his eyes grow really

So 12 00:06:09

big and he turns back and I see him come walking over to me and he shows me the

So 12 00:06:13

picture of the very first pipe bomb with the uh, the kitchen timer the the pipe,

So 12 00:06:17

um, the galvanized steel with the wires coming out of it, you know, anybody

So 12 00:06:20

can tell that's uh, not not good news.

So 12 00:06:23

So we immediately start sending resources over in that, that, uh, that direction.

So 12 00:06:26

We'd actually received a call into the command center, uh, uh, by a retired

So 12 00:06:31

Capitol Police officer that was working for the Capitol Hill Club right next

So 12 00:06:34

door that had been alerted to it.

So 12 00:06:36

So he had taken a picture of it and sent it up to John Wisham.

So 12 00:06:39

So that's kind of how that cascaded so quickly.

So 12 00:06:41

Um, so we started sending resources over there, started evacuating

So 12 00:06:45

part of the Cannon House office building, which oversaw the alley

So 12 00:06:47

where the pipe bomb was found.

So 12 00:06:49

Um, and then at 12:53, as we're dealing with that, somebody looks up

So 12 00:06:53

and says, Chief, there's a large crowd of people approaching our West Front.

So 12 00:06:56

I look up and I literally see hundreds of people coming across the Maryland

So 12 00:07:00

Avenue, um, uh, circle up toward the West Front and then the Peace

So 12 00:07:04

Circle by Pennsylvania Avenue coming up toward the, uh, the West Front.

So 12 00:07:08

Um, and immediately became confrontational with my officers.

So 12 00:07:11

And that's when I knew, there's a couple of key things that I knew were bad.

So 12 00:07:14

One, The fact that like most protests they'll come up and they'll

So 12 00:07:17

start chanting and yelling and screaming and then eventually you

So 12 00:07:20

might start pulling on the fence.

So 12 00:07:21

This happened rather quickly They started grabbing at the fence yanking

So 12 00:07:24

at the fence and then striking at my officers and two key things struck me

So 12 00:07:28

one um, my my fence line, I have very few officers down there and none of the

So 12 00:07:34

officers were wearing their hard gear.

So 12 00:07:37

You know, after MAGA 1 and MAGA 2, we had done after action reports.

So 12 00:07:40

After action reports had one, people need to be in place early.

So 12 00:07:44

People need to be in their hard gear early, and you need to

So 12 00:07:47

keep all your equipment nearby.

So 12 00:07:48

Um, so I was, I was really concerned.

So 12 00:07:50

We, we had nobody down there in hard gear.

So 12 00:07:52

So I turned to my assistant chief on my right, Chief Thomas, and I said, Hey,

So 12 00:07:55

where, where, where the hell's our CDU?

So 12 00:07:56

Get our CDU down there immediately.

So 12 00:07:58

And this was before the very first fence, uh, had come down.

So 12 00:08:01

Um, and then as soon as I saw that put my first call over to, um, D.C.

So 12 00:08:06

Police requesting their assistance.

So 12 00:08:08

So when you're your viewers are looking back at January six and they see these

So 12 00:08:13

officers come in wearing the green and black jackets, those were the bicycle

So 12 00:08:16

platoons that Jeff Carroll, the assistant chief of D.C. Police had placed on

So 12 00:08:20

Constitution Avenue, which, you know, will always be thankful for them.

So 12 00:08:23

So they came in really quick.

So 12 00:08:24

Um, 12:58.

So 12 00:08:26

I make my first call the Capitol Police Board.

So 12 00:08:28

And it's not till 2:09, 71 minutes later, that the Capitol Police Board gives

So 12 00:08:34

me permission to bring in resources.

So 12 00:08:36

Think about that.

So 12 00:08:37

You may not realize it took 81 minutes for that crowd to fight its

So 12 00:08:42

way up to the Capitol, break the first window, and enter the Capitol.

So 12 00:08:45

And for 71 of those minutes, I was repeatedly denied, uh, the

So 12 00:08:49

ability to bring in resources.

So 12 00:08:51

But, you know, as you, as you read about in the book, after a couple of calls

So 12 00:08:55

and not getting approval, I started calling every chief of police I knew.

So 12 00:08:58

I saw what my officers, my men and women were going through.

So 12 00:09:01

I started picking up the phone and, and I was calling federal resources,

So 12 00:09:04

even though by law, you know, I'm, I'm prevented to until I have permission.

So 12 00:09:07

I didn't have permission.

So 12 00:09:08

I started calling Secret Service, FBI, uh, starting calling, um, uh,

So 12 00:09:12

agencies, partner agencies, Virginia State Police, Gary Settles, who just

So 12 00:09:15

retired, uh, called him, friends of mine that I knew would, would send me

So 12 00:09:18

resources as quick as possible, begging them for anything they could send.

So 12 00:09:22

Um, 1:49, I went ahead and called National Guard.

So 12 00:09:26

And again, I still hadn't been received approval.

So 12 00:09:28

I called William Walker, the commanding general of the National Guard and said,

So 12 00:09:31

"send me anything you can, please.

So 12 00:09:34

I'll have permission from the Capitol Police Board any minute, but please,

So 12 00:09:37

this is life and death send me whatever resources you can." Um, and and and

So 12 00:09:42

think about it it wouldn't be four minutes after that before I'd finally

So 12 00:09:45

get approval and even once I got approval Pentagon out wouldn't send the assistance.

Unbelievable.

I, let's talk about that.

Um, General Walter Piatt, uh, was on that call with you that day.

Uh, okay.

Your, your sergeant at arms had finally given you approval to get the guard.

Uh, and now apparently you still had to make the case and plead

for help from the, uh, U. S. military, the Department of Defense.

And this guy, General Walter Piatt, uh, tells you he doesn't like the optics,

uh, and his recommendation to the Secretary of the Army is not to support

the request for National Guard support.

How in the hell can he take that position and, and how did you

feel when you were hearing this?

This is unbelievable.

I was, I was absolutely stunned and dumbfounded.

So, um, 2:09, when I get the approval, I immediately call Walker.

I said, Hey, I now have approval and people need to realize

there's 180 National Guard troops within eyesight of the Capitol.

I'm thinking the cavalry is on its way.

You know, the next biggest cadre of people I have besides D.C. Police is

National Guard, which has, you know, 180 troops with an eyesight of the

Capitol and a 40 member quick reactionary force out at a Joint Base Andrews.

Um, so I I'm thinking they're on their way.

2:34, I get contacted by Dr. Christopher Rodriguez with the D.C.,

um, um, Office of Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency saying

the Pentagon wants me on a call.

Uh, finally get patched into the call, excuse me, finally get patched

into the call and that's where Lieutenant General Walter Piatt is

on the call saying, hey, I understand you're requesting National Guard.

Now, on this call is Mayor Bowser, Robert Conteee, Earl Matthews, who will

later come out as a, as a whistleblower on my behalf, he's a, he was actually

the general counsel at one time for the army, a Harvard graduate lawyer, but

he's at the Pentagon, or I don't know where his location, but he's on the call.

William Walker, uh, Christopher Flynn, uh, General Christopher Flynn's on the call.

So I get on the call and they said, "hey, you're requesting National

Guard assistance?" I said, "Yes, this is a life and death situation.

I need National Guard assistance as quickly as possible to help

to re secure the perimeter."

Exactly what I wanted to do.

And that's when Walter Piatt responds, "I don't like the optics of the

National Guard." That's the second time I've heard the term optics.

"I don't like the optics of the National Guard standing in line with the Capitol

in the background." And he starts saying, "I'd rather relieve your officers off

posts so they can get in the fight."

I tell him, I said, "I don't have that option.

Every one of my officers is in the fight." And he's like, well, you

know, "I don't like the optics." We keep going back and forth.

And he keeps recommending that he relieve my officers.

And I said, "sir, you don't realize my officers are all in the fight.

I don't have officers out there on traffic posts.

They're all in the fight." And he responds, and I will never forget

this, he said, "my recommendation, I'm going to make a recommendation

to the Secretary of the Army.

My recommendation is not to support your request." I was absolutely floored

and dumbfounded. I remember Robert Contee and those of you that may know

him, he can be a little abrupt at times. He said, "hold on a second.

You're denying the request from the Capitol Police chief?" And

again Walter Piatt says the same thing is "I'm not denying it.

I just don't like the optics of the National Guard standing in line.

I would much rather leave your your officers." I said "I don't

have that option." 2:43 p. m We now have a shooting inside the Capitol.

Um, we had had a report of a what sounded like a gunshot before it

turned out not to be a gunshot.

But this time we started getting reports that we have at least one

person, uh suffering from gunshot wound.

I'm still on the call with the Pentagon.

I tell everybody on the call, I said, you know, "we have shooting inside

the Capitol. We have a shooting inside the Capitol. Is that urgent enough

for you now?" And hang up the phone.

Because I now have to call the Capitol Police Board, tell them what we've got,

uh, got going on dealing with that.

You know, the Pentagon wasn't sending me resources, but you

know what they were doing?

They were sending resources to secure generals homes that

weren't even under attack.

So think about that.

2:43, I hang up the phone call, I'm thinking, I got no idea,

what what's going to happen?

I didn't get a result from that.

Uh, it wouldn't be until 5:44 p.m. that the first cadre and national

guard showed up at that point.

I didn't even need them anymore.

I'd called in 17 law enforcement agencies 1700 police officers had

responded to my call for assistance.

Police officers from as far away as New Jersey State Police responded to my

request, uh, and arrived at the Capitol before the National Guard, D.C. National

Guard, which were with an eyesight.

Think about that.

The military let you down so badly.

It's hard to believe, you know, we think the military is there to support

us, protect our nation, protect the Capitol if it's under attack, but

they didn't want any part of it.

Uh, incredible.

Talk to us about, um, the gunshots that were fired at the Capitol.

During that call, you get the, the word that, that it's happened.

Um, tell us who was shot, why they were shot, and, uh, you know, was it justified?

Again, so going back, um, shooting had to be right around

12, um, sorry, 2:43 p.m. It was, um, one, only one gunshot that I'm aware

of, uh, one, one gunshot inside.

It was, um, an individual, uh, was, um, climbing through one of the last, uh,

physical, uh, pains, um, that separated, um, the members of Congress from the,

uh, from the protests, uh, and a person that's assigned to the, um, um, House

chambers actually was, uh, one that fired the bullet on their name is now

gotten out, Lieutenant Michael Byrd.

He fired around at a female that was climbing through the,

uh, through the window again.

You know, um, the word I got was that we had a shooting.

At the time we we knew it was a serious shooting because I remember talking with

my internal affairs Commander telling them to make sure that they notified D.C.

Police because D.C. Police has to do the investigation for any shooting or possible

homicide that occurs So I remember telling him that and then we got word that she was

being transported and it wasn't till later that we got word that she had passed.

I'll tell you any loss of life is absolutely tragic but again, I was

I was removed, uh, the very next day, uh, so don't, you know, I'm not

there for the, for the investigation.

I'm not there to see how it progresses through, you know, the, uh, uh, you

know, uh, pulling together of a, uh, of a grand jury, the usual process

that would occur in, uh, in D.C.. I'm not exactly sure what, what steps.

Uh, occurred with him, but ultimately the Department of Justice, FBI, uh,

um, and MPD, and even the internal investigation at Capitol, these, uh,

came back and found it as a, declared it as a justifiable use of force.

I think one of the main reasons was there

were still House members in.

Uh, in, in, uh, within feet, I guess, of the speaker's lobby,

they were on the house floor.

They still hadn't been cleared.

And so, uh, that officer was trying to protect members of Congress from, uh,

what they thought were armed protesters that were now trying to, to get to them.

And, uh, it seemed to me that, uh, what was most shocking when I was reading

this, One gunshot fired the entire day.

You know, you have hand to hand combat going on.

Your officers have been beaten up.

Uh, their lives are at stake.

Uh, and yet they restrain themselves from using lethal force.

How, how do you explain that?

And, and do you think they should have been more, um, quick to use

lethal force that day to protect themselves and the Capitol?

Uh, I'm, I'm thankful for the restraint, um, that the officer

showed, the 17 law enforcement agencies that responded, they all used very,

very similar, um, levels of force because that's how we're trained.

When you look at it, especially in a civil disturbance, uh, type

of, um, um, environment, you're not trained to go to lethal force.

You're trained to go to mechanical force, chemical force, these type of things.

Lethal force, you know, you know, especially a bill with your your

training, you know, you're responsible for every projectile that leaves at that

barrel if you have reason to resort to lethal force, and I'll tell you, um,

one of the D.C. police officers was actually one of their farms instructor,

and he had said that there was.

numerous opportunities.

You have, we had people that were pulling a piece of two by four off the inaugural

platform and striking at the officers.

And some of these still had the nails sticking out of them.

And, um, he said you had plenty of opportunity that probably would

have legitimately, um, supported responding to lethal force.

It's just tactically wasn't the right thing to do.

You had thousands of people behind these protesters.

You know, you're, you're stressed up.

You're, uh, you're pumped up if you miss.

Yeah.

You're responsible if you hit an innocent person.

Uh, so tactically, uh, legally, they probably could have.

Tactically, it wasn't the right thing to do and I support that.

So I'm happy that these agencies that responded to all kind of

use the same similar use of force continuum because that's what,

that's what we're trained to do.

Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm certainly proud of that aspect of it.

Steve, Steve, how, how close, based on what you just told us

about the person trying to break through into the chambers, how close do you

think the rioters were to getting their actual hands on a member of Congress?

And what do you think would have happened if they did?

So group mentality is very, very, you know, bad things happen when you

get people in big groups and they and they start developing this group mentality.

I think, you know, if there was a couple of cases where I think if, and there

were some pretty close calls with members of Congress that were moving and the

crowd was coming through the Capitol, I think if you would have had the crowd

get a hold on, you know, especially a notorious member of Congress, it

could have been really, really bad.

And I'll tell you, if it hadn't been for D.C. Police, think about it, if I

hadn't reached out to Jeff Crow at 10:59 in the morning, and he had put seven CDU

platoons, you know, about 220 officers on Constitution Avenue, you know, that 81

minutes that they were delayed, the group was delayed in breaking into the Capitol,

because D.C. Police ended up putting a thousand officers up at the Capitol.

Um, if they hadn't gotten there that quickly, that group would have breached

the Capitol much quicker than 81 minutes, capturing, you know, trapping, um,

Vice President, the, um, both the House and Senate chambers, most likely in

their, in their, um, in their chambers.

I have no doubt the, uh, use of force would have been significantly higher,

um, possible lethal use of force, maybe, uh, would have been significantly higher,

and I think we'd be dealing with, um, a lot more injuries, if not worse, um.

So I, I, I hope that answered the question.

I'm not sure.

No, it did.

I mean, I, I just, you know, we hadn't really heard, how close did it come,

and apparently it was pretty close.

It was, it was maybe, maybe 15 yards.

Wow.

And you, and you needed to realize when the attack began at 12:53.

That's almost two hours.

Two hours that these officers are hearing over the radio that this

crowd's getting closer closer and closer Uh, and uh 100-percent the uh,

the evacuation of the house and senate should have been called much quicker.

Uh, but needless to say, um, getting closer and closer and

closer and now almost two hours later, you have literally the last

physical barrier Is being breached.

Um, so, you know, you just got to take that in consideration.

It's a terrible, terrible situation again.

You know, a day doesn't go by that.

I don't think about January 6.

I don't think about, you know, any, uh, any of the, you know,

the loss of Ashley Babbitt.

Uh, it's it's tragic.

But again, you know, the, the officers had, you know, dealing

with a protective mission.

So I've heard people, you know, people say, oh, that wouldn't have

happened at, you know, if, um, they wouldn't have resorted to

lethal force at, at other location.

I can tell you right now, you have a group like that, that's attacking, whether it's

the Buckingham palace and the, uh, White House, or even, um, People headquarters

things bad things are going to happen.

Let's talk about the aftermath.

You've retaken the capital.

Not a single member of Congress or their staff was injured that day.

Yet you had 10,000.

mob members, uh, trying to, uh, cause harm, uh, to people and,

and to the Capitol itself, um, and yet no injuries to the key people.

Uh, you got the Capitol cleared within hours of the, uh,

initial, uh, protests beginning.

Uh, and then, uh, they ended up certifying.

the president as they attempted to do early on, uh within

hours of the the protest.

Um to me that says that uh, you mentioned the odds 58 to one You were

outnumbered, 10,000 or more protesters.

How many how many police officers did you have steve fighting them off?

So At one point there was, um, a, a, uh, somebody came in

and did a study on the West front.

At one point they counted 30,000 people on the West front on January 6th.

And again, um, I think you have a number of people that you have,

uh, some groups of people in there that came to do bad things.

Uh, then I think, you know, again, you'd run into that group mentality.

I think you have a number of people in the group that, I refer to them as

strap hangers that just kind of followed along and say, Hey, what's going on?

And that's when you went up and you know, you saw people walking in walking through

taking pictures, you know, following, you know standing between the the stanchions

and the capital following all the rules.

Uh, so I think there was people that came to do bad things and there are

people that just got drawn into it.

Uh, and hopefully we'll get to address some of the issues with you know these

allegations of my officers holding open doors and waving people in um, but um.

Yeah, it was, it was, uh, you figure a number of officers I had.

We had initially 273 assigned to the perimeter.

We ended up calling in 17 law enforcement agency.

1700 police officers responded that call.

Um, so eventually we were able to clear the capital when people said,

um, we had a number of talking heads on TV saying it would be 24 hours, at

least before they regain the capital.

We regained it in five hours.

I mean, they were back um, we could have gone back into chambers by

7:30 p.m., they elected to go in a little bit later, um, but that's

that's that's pretty remarkable.

And I'm thankful for the law enforcement support we got.

To make that why I was so angry when I read the book and

and heard all of these, uh, you know facts and and figures that go along

with January 6th that you were really a hero your officers were heroes.

They they fought a mob.

They did they fired one gunshot the entire day when their lives were on

the line clearly and they had lethal force options available to them.

Uh, no member of congress is hurt.

No staff members hurt.

Everybody reconvened within hours.

Um, the certification goes ahead and is successful.

Um, and, and so to me that that's heroic.

That means you guys did an amazing job that day.

And yet on January 7th, uh, just 24 hours later, roughly, uh, you heard

that Nancy Pelosi was going to be going on TV and she had a message for you.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, so the, the following day, um, we had been up, uh, you know,

we were working on a press release, uh, put together a press release, and again,

just the idea of the press release, it had to go through almost 10 hours of

review before our first press release could get, um, get put out there.

So, you know, all, all night long we're dealing with this stuff.

I'm, um, talking with, um, various, um, officers, members of Congress.

Uh, I had a couple of very interesting, uh, calls with members of Congress that

got very, uh, heated, uh, but needless to say, one o'clock the next morning,

we've been trying to, you know, we've been briefing, uh, leadership, we've

been trying to set up a briefing for Speaker Pelosi's office, but needless

to say, the next morning, I mean, the next day, at one o'clock, I'm in,

uh, briefing, uh, Roy Blunt, he's the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee,

one of my oversight committees, and as I'm briefing him about, you know, what,

what we're doing, what's, what happened, what happened, what we're doing moving

forward, um, I see, my Chief of Staff looking at her phone and get up and leave.

Come back in, tap my general counsel on the shoulder.

They walk out the next, you know, she comes back in goes "hey chief, you need to

step out we need I need to talk to you." So I told him Senator Blunt, one of my

assistant chiefs was going to take over I stepped out and they said we just got word

uh that Speaker Pelosi was going to go on national tv and call for your resignation.

Now i'd gotten a call from a staffer a high level staffer.

Uh, Jamie Fleet uh, that, uh, works for Pelosi, but I'm

briefing a member, a senator.

I'm not gonna, you know, pick up for, for somebody else,

so I let it go to voicemail.

But they said that Jamie Fleet had reached out to them, said, Chair

Pelosi was gonna go on national TV and call for my resignation.

Um, I thought about just going in and finishing their briefing.

My staff talked me into going in and watching the, uh, the press conference.

Went in and watched the, uh, the press conference, and it was interesting.

About 23 minute press, uh, press conference and it wasn't toward the very

end that it almost seems like it was a, a stage question that they asked,

"Hey, speaker, what are you going to do about the security, uh, issues at the,

uh, at the Capitol?" and that's when she kind of hummed and hawed, you go

back and look at it and it's all over YouTube, um, hums and haws a little

bit, talks about doing an after action.

That is where she probably should have stopped.

Do an after action, base your personnel decisions on the after action.

That would have been the appropriate thing to do.

But then she goes, um, calling for the resignation of, of Steve, of Mr. Sund.

Didn't even pronounce my name right, and I've talked to her a couple of times.

Um, she says there was a failure of leadership at the top.

Um, yeah, there was, it wasn't, like I say, it was mine, but there was, um,

uh, and that, and then she adds, "and I haven't even spoke to him since this

occurred", I spoke to her three times.

So needless to say, she goes on TV, uh, blames me for the, uh, uh, failure

that, uh, caused the, uh, attack at the Capitol, uh, and then counts and paints

me as a callous and disrespectful chief by not even talking to the speaker.

And I'd spoken to her three times.

So clearly I want to chime in about that because that brings up

another point and this came out recently.

You know, her daughter had done a documentary about Nancy Pelosi and

about the Capitol and about the whole.

Events that unfolded it's come out now it's been on ABC.

It's been all over YouTube.

It's been all over the internet.

Other news sources have reported it during this documentary that Nancy

Pelosi's daughter was producing, Nancy Pelosi admitted that she should

have requested the national guard.

She should have authorized the national guard sooner.

And essentially she took responsibility for that by what she

had mentioned in this documentary.

So it kind of seems to me ironic that she's going to use you as the fall

guy, the scapegoat, she's going to lie about the fact that what you had just

mentioned about your interactions with her and ultimately it was her deal.

And, you know, there's so much reporting about this.

That goes back to the fact that, you know, a week prior, Trump was having

a meeting in the Oval Office and Kash Patel was there, Kash Patel has come

out publicly on numerous forums saying, yes, 10,000 National Guard troops a week

before January six, uh, general Millie was in the oval office when that happened.

So, you know, to me, it's just political.

I think that it's, uh, tragically political in so many ways.

And, um, even the national guard, the national guard was standing by,

like you said, they, they were within eyesight, but why didn't they come?

It was probably because it was political and, uh, is that how you feel?

Absolutely.

They were, again, concerned for, uh, for the, for the optics.

So you go back and there's, again, there's so much that, that ended

up tying together in the book.

You talk about the January 3rd and January 4th call with Millie, uh,

Christopher, um, Christopher Miller, the Secretary of Defense, and, um,

trying to think who else was on some of the calls with, um, over, over at the

White House, they're having some calls.

It turns out now that Chris Miller, the Secretary of Defense, and General Milley,

who's the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he really has an advisory role.

Um, but they had been so concerned, think about this, days in advance of

January 6th, they had been so concerned about violence occurring at the Capitol,

that they had talked about locking down Washington, D. C., and revoking the, the

permits issued up at Capitol grounds.

I'm the one that issues those permits.

They never told me a thing about their concerns.

Yet, January 4th, You have Miller, um, um, Miller, Christopher Miller put out a

memo restricting National Guard from even carrying any civil disobedience gear, um,

for the very violence they're expecting.

I, I, you know, what's interesting is, is it's a program called DSCA,

Defense Support for Civil Authorities.

It's where the military, either National Guard or active duty military, can

be brought in to help support civil authorities, whether it's national

disasters, like the wildfires, uh, COVID, or something like this.

There's ways to bring them in.

There's an Emergency Authorization Act.

There's a media authorization, but for me, it would have been

the Emergency Authorization Act.

I've actually been asked by the Department of Defense, uh, when I was

with D.C. To teach DSCA to foreign governments that were looking to kind

of develop the same kind of program.

Um, the Emergency Authorization Act says that when a civil authority, like me,

calls with a legitimate request, like what we had on January 6th, the commanding

general of whatever agency, whatever, um, uh, DoD agency I'm requesting it from has

authorization to immediately give life and death, uh, support life and death,

um, uh, support for the, uh, the request while seeking presidential approval.

Well, Crystal Miller put out that memo on January 4th that basically

restricted that that no longer was valid.

So even when I was sitting there making repeated calls to William Walker from 1:49

all the way through the evening multiple times saying, Hey, where are you guys?

Um, they weren't coming because Miller had put that memo out there.

Um, when, you know, I now think it was because he was concerned that Trump

might invoke the insurrection act might try and deploy the military to affect

the, uh, the outcome of the election.

Uh, so I think you had a number of people down at the white house that

was, you know, plotting, you know, politically, why they wanted to keep the

military away from the, uh, the Capitol.

Again, it was all about the optics.

And what the kicker is, think about this.

So, 5:44, they finally get National Guard up there.

By 5 00:32:42

44, we had all the protesters out of the building.

By 5 00:32:44

We were pushing protesters off Capitol Square, which is, you

By 5 00:32:47

know, the immediate, the immediate streets right around the Capitol,

By 5 00:32:50

and push them off Capitol grounds.

By 5 00:32:52

So, by the time they got sworn in and they got deployed out to their, their

By 5 00:32:55

perimeter assignments, it was over.

By 5 00:32:57

I really, at that point, I didn't even need them.

By 5 00:33:00

But you know what the military does when they finally get on post?

By 5 00:33:03

They, they line up with all their ride gears, their shields, their

By 5 00:33:06

helmets, their batons, and they take a picture and put it on Military Times

By 5 00:33:10

magazine of them standing in line with the Capitol in the background.

By 5 00:33:13

The very damn thing that General Piott had said he was so worried about.

By 5 00:33:17

It just proves that wasn't, wasn't what they're concerned about.

You've been listening to part two of a three

part conversation with former U. S. Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund.

Join us right here next week on the Heroes Behind the Badge podcast,

the final part, part three.

Chief Sund will give us his account of the aftermath of

January 6th and the lasting impact.

You don't want to miss that episode.

To learn more about how you can support law enforcement, go to behindbadge.org.

Join the hundreds of thousands of Americans showing their

support for law enforcement.

That's behind the badge.org.

I'm Dennis Collins, and for my colleagues, Bill Erfurth and

Craig Floyd, it's goodbye for now.

We'll see you here next week for the next episode, the final conversation.

Chief Steven Sund, right here on Heroes Behind the Badge.

Real stories, about real cops, and we expose the fake news about police,

and we'll give you the real truth.