On September 19, 2023, Kerry Pickett reported the following in The Washington Times:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi was among the key players whom former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund said was responsible for the breakdown in security that led to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  Mr. Sund testified before the House Administration Oversight subcommittee Tuesday [September 19, 2023] and told lawmakers that at the time of the attack, he learned that then-Speaker Pelosi never wanted the National Guard deployed.

According to Mr. Sund, on Jan. 3, 2021, he talked to House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger about calling in the National Guard. He was told by Mr. Stenger that he should ask Maj. Gen. William Walker, who was the commander of the D.C. National Guard, how quickly his troops could deploy to the Capitol Complex if necessary.

Mr. Sund said at the hearing that four months after the riot, Mr. Stenger told him Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, did not want the guard on Capitol grounds that day.  “I said, ‘Mr. Stenger, you came up with that response fairly quickly for me to call Gen. Walker.’ And he told me Paul Irving had called him ahead of time and said, ‘Sund came here asking for the National Guard. We’ve got to come up with another plan. Pelosi will never go for it.’ I was floored by him saying that.”

According to Mr. Sund, on the day when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’ certification of President Biden’s win, he contacted Mr. Irving at 12:58 p.m. and requested they call in the National Guard. “He was fully aware of just how bad it was outside …. and I did not get the approval,” he said. He said Mr. Irving said he would “run it up the chain” to get approval. Final approval, which Mr. Sund interpreted as getting from Mrs. Pelosi, was not received for another 71 minutes, he said.

Mr. Sund resigned on Jan. 16, 2021, after Mrs. Pelosi called for him to step down from his post and blamed him for not securing the Capitol.

He maintains that he called the National Guard six times for three days before the attack, but they didn’t deploy.

Response to Deadly Hamas Attack Against Israel

At daybreak on October 7, 2023 — which was the major Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah — the Islamic terror group Hamas carried out a massive, multi-front, surprise attack against Israel, firing thousands of rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state, while dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the Israeli border in a number of locations by air, land and sea. The attack had been planned in conjunction with officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with agents of three other Iran-sponsored terrorist groups. “In an assault of startling breadth,” reported CBS News, “Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, including towns and other communities as far as 15 miles from the Gaza border. In some places they gunned down civilians and soldiers as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response.” By October 8, at least 600 Israelis had been killed and 1,800 wounded, making it the bloodiest day Jews had experienced since the Holocaust. Moreover, Hamas took more than 240 Israelis hostage, including dozens who were American citizens, and moved them to the Gaza Strip. The terrorists also paraded Israelis’ mutilated bodies in Gaza, to cheering crowds of Palestinians. By October 19, the official casualty toll in Israel had reached more than 1,400 dead (including at least 32 Americans) and 4,500 injured. (On October 27, 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces launched an invasion of the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of destroying Hamas and its leadership once and for all.)

After an early-April 2024 Israeli air strike that inadvertently killed 7 aid workers serving the World Central Kitchen (WCK) — a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization that provides food relief for people in need around the world — Pelosi issued a statement that said: “The killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers delivering deeply needed food aid in Gaza is an outrage.  Our prayers are with these heroes and their families during this sad time — as well as with the innocent civilians killed and families suffering in Gaza…. The government of Israel must allow the flow of life-saving aid to innocent families in Gaza and ensure safe passage for those delivering the aid. Hunger cannot be a weapon of war. We must share our food and our humanity.”

On April 5, 2024, Pelosi signed on to a letter addressed to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which congressional Democrats called for the Biden administration — as a gesture of protest vis-a-vis the recent WCK deaths — stop transferring weapons of war to Israel. The letter said, in part:

“We write to express our shared concern and outrage regarding the recent Israeli airstrike which killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including an American citizen. In light of this incident, we strongly urge you to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel, and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed. If this strike is found to have violated U.S. or international law, we urge you to continue withholding these transfers until those responsible are held accountable. We also urge you to withhold these transfers if Israel fails to sufficiently mitigate harm to innocent civilians in Gaza, including aid workers, and if it fails to facilitate – or arbitrarily denies or restricts – the transport and delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“It is estimated that over 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of this war, nearly half of whom are children. The most recent report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative (IPC) indicates that 1.1 million people in Gaza are experiencing catastrophic food insecurity and widespread famine is imminent and expected to occur anytime between now and the next month if there is not an immediate cessation of hostilities.

“While we appreciate your administration’s recent efforts to increase the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, these efforts will not be sufficient to meet the extraordinary need on the ground. The Israeli government’s restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza, coupled with the death and grave harm that aid workers have faced during this war, are compounding this hunger crisis. Recent reports indicate that hundreds of aid trucks sit idle outside the Rafah border crossing due to Israel’s restrictions. And now over 200 aid workers have been killed since the start of the war. These attacks and deaths are having a chilling effect with the World Central Kitchen and other humanitarian groups now suspending their operations in Gaza. …

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated that this was a ‘tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people.’  If this is true, it is a shockingly unacceptable mistake. We strongly urge your administration to conduct a thorough investigation into this airstrike to determine how the aid convoy could have been mistakenly targeted despite coordinating their movements with the Israeli military and traveling in clearly marked vehicles.

“Given the horrifying facts on the ground, we are also greatly concerned by your recent decision to authorize an arms transfer to Israel, which reportedly includes 1,800 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 500 MK-82 500-pound bombs, and 25 F-35A fighter jets. The MK-84 2000-pound bombs have been linked to multiple mass casualty events in Gaza and are capable of killing or wounding people more than 1,000 feet away. We are also concerned by recent reports that the administration is considering authorizing another $18 billion arms transfer to include dozens of F-15 aircraft.

“In light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers. We again strongly urge you to withhold any offensive weapons transfers until the investigation into the airstrike is concluded and, if it is found this strike violated U.S. or international law, those responsible are held accountable. And we again urge you to ensure that any future military assistance to Israel, including already authorized transfers, is subject to conditions to ensure it is used in compliance with U.S. and international law.”

Speaking to RTÉ’s Six One News during a visit to Ireland on April 22, 2024, Pelosi said that while “[w]e recognize Israel’s right to protect itself, [w]e reject the policy and practice of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu — terrible. What could be worse than what he has done in response?” “I don’t know whether he’s afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace, but he has been an obstacle to the two-state solution,” the congresswoman added. Moreover, Pelosi asserted that Netanyahu “should resign” because “he’s ultimately responsible.”

In that same interview, Pelosi said that Israel’s military response to the October 7th atrocities had become grossly disproportionate and unjustified. One exchange between Pelosi and the interviewer went as follows:

PELOSI: “The overwhelming — we don’t know how many people have died. We have the Hamas report, let’s — let’s accept that. It’s tens of thousands. Ten would be too many, but tens of thousands —”
INTERVIEWER: “35,000 seems to be the number [claimed by Hamas] at the moment.”
PELOSI: “I know, that’s what it said. And let’s — let’s accept that. It’s too many, whatever it is.”

Video Emerges of Pelosi Privately Saying “I Take Responsibility” for the January 6, 2021 Riot at U.S. Capitol 

On June 10, 2024, the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight publicly released a video clip showing then-House Speaker Pelosi riding in an SUV and speaking via telephone to her chief of staff, Terri McCullough, during the infamous Capitol riot of January 6, 2021 and acknowledging her own culpability for the chaos that was unfolding that day. The video was obtained from HBO and had been filmed by Rep. Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra during the course of producing a documentary on the congresswoman.

Conceding that the lack of preparedness for crowd control in Washington on January 6 was her fault, Pelosi, as heard in the video, asked McCullough incredulously: “Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?” “They clearly didn’t know,” she added, “and I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more.” (Notably, then-President Donald Trump had tried to arrange for 10,000 National Guard troops to reinforce Capitol Police in D.C., but Pentagon leadership resisted the idea.)

According to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned on January 7, 2021, Pelosi’s deputies had rejected requests for preemptive deployment of National Guard troops six times prior to the day of the riot — chiefly because the speaker’s staff felt that the presence of such troops in D.C. would constitute bad “optics,” particularly in light of the many Democrat denunciations of troop deployments that had been put into effect during the violent, riot-filled summer of 2020.

The Federalist reported on June 11, 2024: “Sund also said he desperately pleaded for policymakers to deploy the National Guard as the demonstrations escalated beyond his team’s control. According to Sund, the House sergeant at arms took 71 minutes to approve the dispatching of additional National Guard troops while the Capitol was attacked.”

Pelosi’s Husband Sells 2,000 Shares of Visa Stock, Just Before DOJ Sues Visa

On July 1, 2024, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, sold 2,000 shares of Visa stock worth between $500,000 and $1 million. Just a few weeks later, on September 24, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Visa, claiming that the company was illegally monopolizing the debit card market. Reported the New York Post: “At the time Paul sold the Visa stock, there was no public indication that the antitrust lawsuit against the company was imminent. Shares of Visa closed down 5.5% the day the lawsuit was announced.”