WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a blistering public rebuke that has reignited the embers of January 6 scrutiny, former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund unleashed explosive allegations against ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, accusing her of stonewalling National Guard deployment pleas that could have averted the Capitol breach. Sund’s pointed social media salvo, laced with timestamps and federal law citations, paints a damning picture of political calculus trumping security on that chaotic day four years ago.
“Ma’am, let me help refresh your memory,” Sund wrote in a thread directed at Pelosi, detailing how her office’s Sergeant at Arms rebuffed his urgent entreaties starting January 3. Despite warnings of brewing unrest ahead of the electoral certification, Sund claimed his initial request was denied outright. Come January 6, as rioters stormed barricades, he alleged a harrowing 71-minute delay while the aide “ran it up the chain” for Pelosi’s green light—time enough for the mob to overrun the building, leaving five dead and democracy’s seat of power in tatters. Under 2 U.S.C. §1970, Sund emphasized, he lacked unilateral authority; Pelosi’s nod was non-negotiable.
The timing couldn’t be more charged. Pelosi, now 85 and a diminished force in a GOP-led House, lashed out at a reporter probing her potential culpability just days earlier, snarling “Shut up!” amid questions about a nascent Republican-led Jan. 6 probe chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk. That panel, revived last month, vows to unearth “security failures” long buried under Democratic narratives blaming then-President Trump. Sund’s intervention—bolstered by his 2023 testimony and a forthcoming book excerpt—bolsters GOP claims that Pelosi prioritized “optics” over officers’ lives, rejecting thousands of troops for fear of militarized imagery echoing 2020 protests.
Pelosi’s camp fired back swiftly, dismissing Sund as a “disgruntled ex-chief” peddling revisionism to curry Trump favor. Yet the volley has cleaved old wounds: allies whisper of her fraying influence, with progressives eyeing her California throne. For Sund, ousted in the riot’s aftermath and scapegoated in Pelosi’s crosshairs, it’s vindication laced with venom. “We have totally failed,” he once lamented of the lapses. Now, with Trump’s second term emboldening investigations, Pelosi’s fortress of alibis may crumble. Is this the reckoning Jan. 6 demands, or another partisan pyre? As subpoenas loom, one thing’s clear: the former speaker should indeed be nervous.
