Pelosi: Lawmakers Who Aided Mob Face Prosecution

Ex-chief of Capitol Police, as well as an Army general, have suspicions about attack
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 15, 2021 3:35 PM CST
Pelosi: Lawmakers Who Aided Mob Face Prosecution
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a news conference at the Capitol in Washington on Friday.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she wants to know whether any of her colleagues helped the mob that stormed the Capitol last week. That would put them in criminal jeopardy, she said. "If in fact it is found that members of Congress were accomplices to this insurrection, if they aided and abetted the crime," Pelosi said, "there may have to be actions taken beyond the Congress in terms of prosecutions." Suspicions have been raised by House Democrats that Republicans gave tours to rioters before the attack, and they've asked Capitol Police to see visitor logs. "That will be looked into," said Pelosi. She also said she's asked retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to assess security at the Capitol, per NPR. "We must subject this whole complex to scrutiny," Pelosi said.

Honoré was critical of the efforts to counter the rioters last week, per WVUE. "It's like the Capitol Police was doing security by Zoom," he said. The general added: "I've just never seen so much incompetence, so they're either that stupid, or ignorant or complicit. I think they were complicit." Steven Sund, who resigned as chief of the Capitol Police after the attack, said Friday that he believes the mob's assault was part of a coordinated attack. In discussing the insurrection, Pelosi became emotional about the showings of bigotry in the Capitol, especially the "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt one rioter wore. "To see this punk with that shirt on and his anti-Semitism that he has bragged about to be part of a white supremacist raid on this Capitol requires us to have an after-action review," Pelosi said. (More Capitol riot stories.)

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