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Heroes Behind the Badge: Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund's Story - Part II · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:09
Dennis Collins: Hello, and welcome to Heroes Behind the Badge.
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We tell real stories about real cops, we expose the fake news about police,
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and we give you the real truth.
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This podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge, the leading
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voice of the American people in support of the men and women of law enforcement
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dedicated to ending the disastrous movement to defund and defame the police.
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I'm your host.
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I'm Dennis Collins, a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.
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Today, I'm joined by my colleagues, Bill Erfurth and Craig Floyd.
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Bill is a retired Miami Dade police lieutenant with 26
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years of decorated service.
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He is also a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.
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Craig Floyd is the founder and president and CEO of Citizens Behind the Badge.
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Many of you may know Craig as the founding CEO emeritus of the National
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Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
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It was Craig who led the teams that built the Law Enforcement Memorial
1:14
and the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C. No one has
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worked longer or harder than Craig to advocate and support law enforcement.
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So, In today's episode, we feature part two of our three part series
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featuring a conversation with former U. S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.
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I hope you were able to hear part one.
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Steve started his law enforcement career with the Metro Washington, D.C. Police.
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He held numerous leadership positions over his 25 year career.
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Metro PD's SOD special operations division handling all the major events,
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security operations, and he helped coordinate the security for all the many
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high profile events in the D.C. area.
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Steve moved over to the U. S. Capitol police in 2017.
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He was promoted to chief in 2019.
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He was the chief during the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
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Steve is also a member of the Citizens Behind the Badge Law
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Enforcement Advisory Council.
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He wrote a book called Courage Under Fire.
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He offers an incredibly detailed and thorough documentation
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of the events leading up to, during, and after the incident.
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This second episode today, Chief Sund offers us his account inside
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January 6, the step by step, minute by minute, as it happened.
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Here's part two of our conversation with chief Steven Sund.
2:55
Craig Floyd: I was just going to go back to January 6th and the day of, uh, and
3:00
you cited some of the things that were happening that day, but I'm looking at
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your book and at 12:20 PM, that's when you first got word that a hundred proud boys
3:10
were marching toward the Capitol, which was unexpected, I guess, based on your
3:15
intelligence prior that you said nobody would be marching on the Capitol or to
3:19
the Capitol, and you also heard rumors that President Trump had indicated he was
3:24
going to come to the Capitol that day.
3:27
I assume this is when all the red flags and the alarms
3:31
were going off in your mind.
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You were sitting, I guess, in the command center, uh, watching and
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listening to all these reports coming in.
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What, what was your initial reaction when you started to realize this thing
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was not going the way you had planned?
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Steven Sund: We, we, we anticipated like MAGA 2 when they
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marched up the Supreme Court.
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By the capitol.
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We anticipated that they were gonna march up to the capitol.
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So having groups come up to the capitol was not unanticipated.
3:55
We had expected them to march up there.
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We just didn't expect 'em to, uh, start attacking my officers like they did.
4:00
Um, many in the group, we can talk about that.
4:03
'cause I don't believe it was, uh, the entire groups.
4:05
I think you had a small group of, uh, what we call es disturbers, uh, in there.
4:09
But needless to say, the Proud Boys came up.
4:12
I remember being in the command center, them saying, "hey, we've got a group
4:14
of Proud Boys coming up." They kind of marched, uh, up one of the, um, uh, around
4:18
one of the roadways, uh, by the Capitol.
4:20
We watched them kind of come around toward the east front of the Capitol
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um, and then I believe they, they disappeared and went down, back down
4:27
toward the mall again, uh, after that.
4:29
And then shortly after that, we ended up having our first pipe bomb over at the,
4:33
um, Capitol Hill Club, the Republican, excuse me, Republican National Committee.
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Craig Floyd: There were actually two pipe bombs as I recall.
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I mean, you're dealing with a mob coming, uh, to attack your officers and take
4:45
over the Capitol, but you're also hearing reports of two pipe bombs that had been
4:50
planted, one at the, uh, Republican National Committee headquarters, one at
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the Democratic National Headquarters.
4:56
You heard about a car that was found with, loaded with guns and, uh,
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ammunition and all sorts of bad devices.
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Um, you were dealing with a lot more than just the riot.
5:07
It was incredible to me that somehow you were able to coordinate and manage
5:11
all of this as chaos was erupting.
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Steven Sund: And it's interesting right around 12-noon things started, you
5:18
know, kind of speeding up a little bit.
5:19
12:36 we had Vice President Pence's motorcade arrived because he's, you
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know, he's the head of the Senate.
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He's the deciding vote on the Senate.
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So he was there overseeing the certification of the vote.
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So 12:36, his motorcade arrives, watch it arrive, see him get escorted into
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the Senate carriage and then 12:43.
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You know, I'm sitting in the command center, I'm kind of watching everything
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and we're seeing the large crowds down by the, uh, the ellipse, and I look
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over to my left and I see, um, my watch commander, um, John Wisham, Lieutenant
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John Wisham, who was previously one of my bomb squad commanders, just may
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happen to be, be that way, but I see him looking at his phone and he keeps looking
6:00
back at me and it's one of those things where you can tell, uh, something's up.
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He's talking to somebody.
6:04
Something's up.
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And finally I see a image come up on a cell phone and I see his eyes grow really
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big and he turns back and I see him come walking over to me and he shows me the
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picture of the very first pipe bomb with the uh, the kitchen timer the the pipe,
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um, the galvanized steel with the wires coming out of it, you know, anybody
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can tell that's uh, not not good news.
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So we immediately start sending resources over in that, that, uh, that direction.
6:26
We'd actually received a call into the command center, uh, uh, by a retired
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Capitol Police officer that was working for the Capitol Hill Club right next
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door that had been alerted to it.
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So he had taken a picture of it and sent it up to John Wisham.
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So that's kind of how that cascaded so quickly.
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Um, so we started sending resources over there, started evacuating
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part of the Cannon House office building, which oversaw the alley
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where the pipe bomb was found.
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Um, and then at 12:53, as we're dealing with that, somebody looks up
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and says, Chief, there's a large crowd of people approaching our West Front.
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I look up and I literally see hundreds of people coming across the Maryland
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Avenue, um, uh, circle up toward the West Front and then the Peace
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Circle by Pennsylvania Avenue coming up toward the, uh, the West Front.
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Um, and immediately became confrontational with my officers.
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And that's when I knew, there's a couple of key things that I knew were bad.
7:14
One, The fact that like most protests they'll come up and they'll
7:17
start chanting and yelling and screaming and then eventually you
7:20
might start pulling on the fence.
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This happened rather quickly They started grabbing at the fence yanking
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at the fence and then striking at my officers and two key things struck me
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one um, my my fence line, I have very few officers down there and none of the
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officers were wearing their hard gear.
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You know, after MAGA 1 and MAGA 2, we had done after action reports.
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After action reports had one, people need to be in place early.
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People need to be in their hard gear early, and you need to
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keep all your equipment nearby.
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Um, so I was, I was really concerned.
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We, we had nobody down there in hard gear.
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So I turned to my assistant chief on my right, Chief Thomas, and I said, Hey,
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where, where, where the hell's our CDU?
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Get our CDU down there immediately.
7:58
And this was before the very first fence, uh, had come down.
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Um, and then as soon as I saw that put my first call over to, um, D.C.
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Police requesting their assistance.
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So when you're your viewers are looking back at January six and they see these
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officers come in wearing the green and black jackets, those were the bicycle
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platoons that Jeff Carroll, the assistant chief of D.C. Police had placed on
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Constitution Avenue, which, you know, will always be thankful for them.
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So they came in really quick.
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Um, 12:58.
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I make my first call the Capitol Police Board.
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And it's not till 2:09, 71 minutes later, that the Capitol Police Board gives
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me permission to bring in resources.
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Think about that.
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You may not realize it took 81 minutes for that crowd to fight its
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way up to the Capitol, break the first window, and enter the Capitol.
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And for 71 of those minutes, I was repeatedly denied, uh, the
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ability to bring in resources.
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But, you know, as you, as you read about in the book, after a couple of calls
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and not getting approval, I started calling every chief of police I knew.
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I saw what my officers, my men and women were going through.
9:01
I started picking up the phone and, and I was calling federal resources,
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even though by law, you know, I'm, I'm prevented to until I have permission.
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I didn't have permission.
9:08
I started calling Secret Service, FBI, uh, starting calling, um, uh,
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agencies, partner agencies, Virginia State Police, Gary Settles, who just
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retired, uh, called him, friends of mine that I knew would, would send me
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resources as quick as possible, begging them for anything they could send.
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Um, 1:49, I went ahead and called National Guard.
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And again, I still hadn't been received approval.
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I called William Walker, the commanding general of the National Guard and said,
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"send me anything you can, please.
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I'll have permission from the Capitol Police Board any minute, but please,
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this is life and death send me whatever resources you can." Um, and and and
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think about it it wouldn't be four minutes after that before I'd finally
9:45
get approval and even once I got approval Pentagon out wouldn't send the assistance.
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Craig Floyd: Unbelievable.
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I, let's talk about that.
9:53
Um, General Walter Piatt, uh, was on that call with you that day.
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Uh, okay.
9:59
Your, your sergeant at arms had finally given you approval to get the guard.
10:04
Uh, and now apparently you still had to make the case and plead
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for help from the, uh, U. S. military, the Department of Defense.
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And this guy, General Walter Piatt, uh, tells you he doesn't like the optics,
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uh, and his recommendation to the Secretary of the Army is not to support
10:21
the request for National Guard support.
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How in the hell can he take that position and, and how did you
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feel when you were hearing this?
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This is unbelievable.
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Steven Sund: I was, I was absolutely stunned and dumbfounded.
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So, um, 2:09, when I get the approval, I immediately call Walker.
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I said, Hey, I now have approval and people need to realize
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there's 180 National Guard troops within eyesight of the Capitol.
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I'm thinking the cavalry is on its way.
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You know, the next biggest cadre of people I have besides D.C. Police is
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National Guard, which has, you know, 180 troops with an eyesight of the
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Capitol and a 40 member quick reactionary force out at a Joint Base Andrews.
10:59
Um, so I I'm thinking they're on their way.
11:02
2:34, I get contacted by Dr. Christopher Rodriguez with the D.C.,
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um, um, Office of Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency saying
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the Pentagon wants me on a call.
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Uh, finally get patched into the call, excuse me, finally get patched
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into the call and that's where Lieutenant General Walter Piatt is
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on the call saying, hey, I understand you're requesting National Guard.
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Now, on this call is Mayor Bowser, Robert Conteee, Earl Matthews, who will
11:28
later come out as a, as a whistleblower on my behalf, he's a, he was actually
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the general counsel at one time for the army, a Harvard graduate lawyer, but
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he's at the Pentagon, or I don't know where his location, but he's on the call.
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William Walker, uh, Christopher Flynn, uh, General Christopher Flynn's on the call.
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So I get on the call and they said, "hey, you're requesting National
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Guard assistance?" I said, "Yes, this is a life and death situation.
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I need National Guard assistance as quickly as possible to help
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to re secure the perimeter."
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Exactly what I wanted to do.
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And that's when Walter Piatt responds, "I don't like the optics of the
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National Guard." That's the second time I've heard the term optics.
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"I don't like the optics of the National Guard standing in line with the Capitol
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in the background." And he starts saying, "I'd rather relieve your officers off
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posts so they can get in the fight."
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I tell him, I said, "I don't have that option.
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Every one of my officers is in the fight." And he's like, well, you
12:20
know, "I don't like the optics." We keep going back and forth.
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And he keeps recommending that he relieve my officers.
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And I said, "sir, you don't realize my officers are all in the fight.
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I don't have officers out there on traffic posts.
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They're all in the fight." And he responds, and I will never forget
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this, he said, "my recommendation, I'm going to make a recommendation
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to the Secretary of the Army.
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My recommendation is not to support your request." I was absolutely floored
12:45
and dumbfounded. I remember Robert Contee and those of you that may know
12:49
him, he can be a little abrupt at times. He said, "hold on a second.
12:53
You're denying the request from the Capitol Police chief?" And
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again Walter Piatt says the same thing is "I'm not denying it.
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I just don't like the optics of the National Guard standing in line.
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I would much rather leave your your officers." I said "I don't
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have that option." 2:43 p. m We now have a shooting inside the Capitol.
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Um, we had had a report of a what sounded like a gunshot before it
13:16
turned out not to be a gunshot.
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But this time we started getting reports that we have at least one
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person, uh suffering from gunshot wound.
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I'm still on the call with the Pentagon.
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I tell everybody on the call, I said, you know, "we have shooting inside
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the Capitol. We have a shooting inside the Capitol. Is that urgent enough
13:30
for you now?" And hang up the phone.
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Because I now have to call the Capitol Police Board, tell them what we've got,
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uh, got going on dealing with that.
13:38
You know, the Pentagon wasn't sending me resources, but you
13:40
know what they were doing?
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They were sending resources to secure generals homes that
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weren't even under attack.
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So think about that.
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2:43, I hang up the phone call, I'm thinking, I got no idea,
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what what's going to happen?
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I didn't get a result from that.
13:55
Uh, it wouldn't be until 5:44 p.m. that the first cadre and national
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guard showed up at that point.
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I didn't even need them anymore.
14:03
I'd called in 17 law enforcement agencies 1700 police officers had
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responded to my call for assistance.
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Police officers from as far away as New Jersey State Police responded to my
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request, uh, and arrived at the Capitol before the National Guard, D.C. National
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Guard, which were with an eyesight.
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Think about that.
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Craig Floyd: The military let you down so badly.
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It's hard to believe, you know, we think the military is there to support
14:28
us, protect our nation, protect the Capitol if it's under attack, but
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they didn't want any part of it.
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Uh, incredible.
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Talk to us about, um, the gunshots that were fired at the Capitol.
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During that call, you get the, the word that, that it's happened.
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Um, tell us who was shot, why they were shot, and, uh, you know, was it justified?
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Steven Sund: Again, so going back, um, shooting had to be right around
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12, um, sorry, 2:43 p.m. It was, um, one, only one gunshot that I'm aware
15:00
of, uh, one, one gunshot inside.
15:02
It was, um, an individual, uh, was, um, climbing through one of the last, uh,
15:07
physical, uh, pains, um, that separated, um, the members of Congress from the,
15:12
uh, from the protests, uh, and a person that's assigned to the, um, um, House
15:17
chambers actually was, uh, one that fired the bullet on their name is now
15:22
gotten out, Lieutenant Michael Byrd.
15:24
He fired around at a female that was climbing through the,
15:26
uh, through the window again.
15:28
You know, um, the word I got was that we had a shooting.
15:33
At the time we we knew it was a serious shooting because I remember talking with
15:37
my internal affairs Commander telling them to make sure that they notified D.C.
15:41
Police because D.C. Police has to do the investigation for any shooting or possible
15:46
homicide that occurs So I remember telling him that and then we got word that she was
15:51
being transported and it wasn't till later that we got word that she had passed.
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I'll tell you any loss of life is absolutely tragic but again, I was
16:02
I was removed, uh, the very next day, uh, so don't, you know, I'm not
16:06
there for the, for the investigation.
16:08
I'm not there to see how it progresses through, you know, the, uh, uh, you
16:13
know, uh, pulling together of a, uh, of a grand jury, the usual process
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that would occur in, uh, in D.C.. I'm not exactly sure what, what steps.
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Uh, occurred with him, but ultimately the Department of Justice, FBI, uh,
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um, and MPD, and even the internal investigation at Capitol, these, uh,
16:29
came back and found it as a, declared it as a justifiable use of force.
16:34
Craig Floyd: I think one of the main reasons was there
16:36
were still House members in.
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Uh, in, in, uh, within feet, I guess, of the speaker's lobby,
16:43
they were on the house floor.
16:44
They still hadn't been cleared.
16:46
And so, uh, that officer was trying to protect members of Congress from, uh,
16:51
what they thought were armed protesters that were now trying to, to get to them.
16:56
And, uh, it seemed to me that, uh, what was most shocking when I was reading
17:00
this, One gunshot fired the entire day.
17:04
You know, you have hand to hand combat going on.
17:06
Your officers have been beaten up.
17:09
Uh, their lives are at stake.
17:11
Uh, and yet they restrain themselves from using lethal force.
17:15
How, how do you explain that?
17:16
And, and do you think they should have been more, um, quick to use
17:21
lethal force that day to protect themselves and the Capitol?
17:25
Steven Sund: Uh, I'm, I'm thankful for the restraint, um, that the officer
17:29
showed, the 17 law enforcement agencies that responded, they all used very,
17:33
very similar, um, levels of force because that's how we're trained.
17:37
When you look at it, especially in a civil disturbance, uh, type
17:39
of, um, um, environment, you're not trained to go to lethal force.
17:42
You're trained to go to mechanical force, chemical force, these type of things.
17:45
Lethal force, you know, you know, especially a bill with your your
17:50
training, you know, you're responsible for every projectile that leaves at that
17:53
barrel if you have reason to resort to lethal force, and I'll tell you, um,
17:59
one of the D.C. police officers was actually one of their farms instructor,
18:04
and he had said that there was.
18:06
numerous opportunities.
18:07
You have, we had people that were pulling a piece of two by four off the inaugural
18:11
platform and striking at the officers.
18:13
And some of these still had the nails sticking out of them.
18:16
And, um, he said you had plenty of opportunity that probably would
18:19
have legitimately, um, supported responding to lethal force.
18:24
It's just tactically wasn't the right thing to do.
18:26
You had thousands of people behind these protesters.
18:29
You know, you're, you're stressed up.
18:30
You're, uh, you're pumped up if you miss.
18:33
Yeah.
18:33
You're responsible if you hit an innocent person.
18:35
Uh, so tactically, uh, legally, they probably could have.
18:38
Tactically, it wasn't the right thing to do and I support that.
18:40
So I'm happy that these agencies that responded to all kind of
18:43
use the same similar use of force continuum because that's what,
18:46
that's what we're trained to do.
18:48
Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm certainly proud of that aspect of it.
18:51
Dennis Collins: Steve, Steve, how, how close, based on what you just told us
18:55
about the person trying to break through into the chambers, how close do you
19:00
think the rioters were to getting their actual hands on a member of Congress?
19:05
And what do you think would have happened if they did?
19:07
Steven Sund: So group mentality is very, very, you know, bad things happen when you
19:12
get people in big groups and they and they start developing this group mentality.
19:17
I think, you know, if there was a couple of cases where I think if, and there
19:21
were some pretty close calls with members of Congress that were moving and the
19:24
crowd was coming through the Capitol, I think if you would have had the crowd
19:27
get a hold on, you know, especially a notorious member of Congress, it
19:32
could have been really, really bad.
19:34
And I'll tell you, if it hadn't been for D.C. Police, think about it, if I
19:39
hadn't reached out to Jeff Crow at 10:59 in the morning, and he had put seven CDU
19:42
platoons, you know, about 220 officers on Constitution Avenue, you know, that 81
19:48
minutes that they were delayed, the group was delayed in breaking into the Capitol,
19:51
because D.C. Police ended up putting a thousand officers up at the Capitol.
19:56
Um, if they hadn't gotten there that quickly, that group would have breached
19:59
the Capitol much quicker than 81 minutes, capturing, you know, trapping, um,
20:02
Vice President, the, um, both the House and Senate chambers, most likely in
20:06
their, in their, um, in their chambers.
20:09
I have no doubt the, uh, use of force would have been significantly higher,
20:12
um, possible lethal use of force, maybe, uh, would have been significantly higher,
20:15
and I think we'd be dealing with, um, a lot more injuries, if not worse, um.
20:20
So I, I, I hope that answered the question.
20:22
I'm not sure.
20:23
Dennis Collins: No, it did.
20:24
I mean, I, I just, you know, we hadn't really heard, how close did it come,
20:28
and apparently it was pretty close.
20:31
Steven Sund: It was, it was maybe, maybe 15 yards.
20:33
Dennis Collins: Wow.
20:34
Steven Sund: And you, and you needed to realize when the attack began at 12:53.
20:38
That's almost two hours.
20:40
Two hours that these officers are hearing over the radio that this
20:43
crowd's getting closer closer and closer Uh, and uh 100-percent the uh,
20:48
the evacuation of the house and senate should have been called much quicker.
20:51
Uh, but needless to say, um, getting closer and closer and
20:55
closer and now almost two hours later, you have literally the last
20:59
physical barrier Is being breached.
21:02
Um, so, you know, you just got to take that in consideration.
21:05
It's a terrible, terrible situation again.
21:08
You know, a day doesn't go by that.
21:09
I don't think about January 6.
21:11
I don't think about, you know, any, uh, any of the, you know,
21:14
the loss of Ashley Babbitt.
21:16
Uh, it's it's tragic.
21:19
But again, you know, the, the officers had, you know, dealing
21:22
with a protective mission.
21:23
So I've heard people, you know, people say, oh, that wouldn't have
21:25
happened at, you know, if, um, they wouldn't have resorted to
21:29
lethal force at, at other location.
21:30
I can tell you right now, you have a group like that, that's attacking, whether it's
21:33
the Buckingham palace and the, uh, White House, or even, um, People headquarters
21:42
things bad things are going to happen.
21:46
Craig Floyd: Let's talk about the aftermath.
21:49
You've retaken the capital.
21:52
Not a single member of Congress or their staff was injured that day.
21:58
Yet you had 10,000.
22:01
mob members, uh, trying to, uh, cause harm, uh, to people and,
22:06
and to the Capitol itself, um, and yet no injuries to the key people.
22:11
Uh, you got the Capitol cleared within hours of the, uh,
22:16
initial, uh, protests beginning.
22:19
Uh, and then, uh, they ended up certifying.
22:23
the president as they attempted to do early on, uh within
22:28
hours of the the protest.
22:30
Um to me that says that uh, you mentioned the odds 58 to one You were
22:36
outnumbered, 10,000 or more protesters.
22:39
How many how many police officers did you have steve fighting them off?
22:42
Steven Sund: So At one point there was, um, a, a, uh, somebody came in
22:48
and did a study on the West front.
22:50
At one point they counted 30,000 people on the West front on January 6th.
22:55
And again, um, I think you have a number of people that you have,
22:58
uh, some groups of people in there that came to do bad things.
23:01
Uh, then I think, you know, again, you'd run into that group mentality.
23:04
I think you have a number of people in the group that, I refer to them as
23:07
strap hangers that just kind of followed along and say, Hey, what's going on?
23:10
And that's when you went up and you know, you saw people walking in walking through
23:14
taking pictures, you know, following, you know standing between the the stanchions
23:17
and the capital following all the rules.
23:19
Uh, so I think there was people that came to do bad things and there are
23:22
people that just got drawn into it.
23:23
Uh, and hopefully we'll get to address some of the issues with you know these
23:26
allegations of my officers holding open doors and waving people in um, but um.
23:32
Yeah, it was, it was, uh, you figure a number of officers I had.
23:36
We had initially 273 assigned to the perimeter.
23:40
We ended up calling in 17 law enforcement agency.
23:42
1700 police officers responded that call.
23:45
Um, so eventually we were able to clear the capital when people said,
23:49
um, we had a number of talking heads on TV saying it would be 24 hours, at
23:52
least before they regain the capital.
23:54
We regained it in five hours.
23:56
I mean, they were back um, we could have gone back into chambers by
24:00
7:30 p.m., they elected to go in a little bit later, um, but that's
24:04
that's that's pretty remarkable.
24:06
And I'm thankful for the law enforcement support we got.
24:09
Craig Floyd: To make that why I was so angry when I read the book and
24:12
and heard all of these, uh, you know facts and and figures that go along
24:17
with January 6th that you were really a hero your officers were heroes.
24:21
They they fought a mob.
24:23
They did they fired one gunshot the entire day when their lives were on
24:27
the line clearly and they had lethal force options available to them.
24:32
Uh, no member of congress is hurt.
24:34
No staff members hurt.
24:35
Everybody reconvened within hours.
24:38
Um, the certification goes ahead and is successful.
24:42
Um, and, and so to me that that's heroic.
24:45
That means you guys did an amazing job that day.
24:48
And yet on January 7th, uh, just 24 hours later, roughly, uh, you heard
24:55
that Nancy Pelosi was going to be going on TV and she had a message for you.
24:59
Tell us about that.
25:01
Steven Sund: Yeah, so the, the following day, um, we had been up, uh, you know,
25:07
we were working on a press release, uh, put together a press release, and again,
25:10
just the idea of the press release, it had to go through almost 10 hours of
25:14
review before our first press release could get, um, get put out there.
25:17
So, you know, all, all night long we're dealing with this stuff.
25:20
I'm, um, talking with, um, various, um, officers, members of Congress.
25:25
Uh, I had a couple of very interesting, uh, calls with members of Congress that
25:29
got very, uh, heated, uh, but needless to say, one o'clock the next morning,
25:33
we've been trying to, you know, we've been briefing, uh, leadership, we've
25:36
been trying to set up a briefing for Speaker Pelosi's office, but needless
25:39
to say, the next morning, I mean, the next day, at one o'clock, I'm in,
25:42
uh, briefing, uh, Roy Blunt, he's the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee,
25:46
one of my oversight committees, and as I'm briefing him about, you know, what,
25:50
what we're doing, what's, what happened, what happened, what we're doing moving
25:53
forward, um, I see, my Chief of Staff looking at her phone and get up and leave.
26:00
Come back in, tap my general counsel on the shoulder.
26:03
They walk out the next, you know, she comes back in goes "hey chief, you need to
26:07
step out we need I need to talk to you." So I told him Senator Blunt, one of my
26:12
assistant chiefs was going to take over I stepped out and they said we just got word
26:15
uh that Speaker Pelosi was going to go on national tv and call for your resignation.
26:19
Now i'd gotten a call from a staffer a high level staffer.
26:22
Uh, Jamie Fleet uh, that, uh, works for Pelosi, but I'm
26:26
briefing a member, a senator.
26:27
I'm not gonna, you know, pick up for, for somebody else,
26:30
so I let it go to voicemail.
26:32
But they said that Jamie Fleet had reached out to them, said, Chair
26:34
Pelosi was gonna go on national TV and call for my resignation.
26:37
Um, I thought about just going in and finishing their briefing.
26:40
My staff talked me into going in and watching the, uh, the press conference.
26:43
Went in and watched the, uh, the press conference, and it was interesting.
26:46
About 23 minute press, uh, press conference and it wasn't toward the very
26:50
end that it almost seems like it was a, a stage question that they asked,
26:55
"Hey, speaker, what are you going to do about the security, uh, issues at the,
26:59
uh, at the Capitol?" and that's when she kind of hummed and hawed, you go
27:02
back and look at it and it's all over YouTube, um, hums and haws a little
27:07
bit, talks about doing an after action.
27:09
That is where she probably should have stopped.
27:11
Do an after action, base your personnel decisions on the after action.
27:13
That would have been the appropriate thing to do.
27:16
But then she goes, um, calling for the resignation of, of Steve, of Mr. Sund.
27:22
Didn't even pronounce my name right, and I've talked to her a couple of times.
27:24
Um, she says there was a failure of leadership at the top.
27:30
Um, yeah, there was, it wasn't, like I say, it was mine, but there was, um,
27:34
uh, and that, and then she adds, "and I haven't even spoke to him since this
27:38
occurred", I spoke to her three times.
27:41
So needless to say, she goes on TV, uh, blames me for the, uh, uh, failure
27:45
that, uh, caused the, uh, attack at the Capitol, uh, and then counts and paints
27:50
me as a callous and disrespectful chief by not even talking to the speaker.
27:54
And I'd spoken to her three times.
27:57
Bill Erfurth: So clearly I want to chime in about that because that brings up
28:00
another point and this came out recently.
28:03
You know, her daughter had done a documentary about Nancy Pelosi and
28:08
about the Capitol and about the whole.
28:11
Events that unfolded it's come out now it's been on ABC.
28:15
It's been all over YouTube.
28:17
It's been all over the internet.
28:19
Other news sources have reported it during this documentary that Nancy
28:24
Pelosi's daughter was producing, Nancy Pelosi admitted that she should
28:29
have requested the national guard.
28:31
She should have authorized the national guard sooner.
28:35
And essentially she took responsibility for that by what she
28:40
had mentioned in this documentary.
28:42
So it kind of seems to me ironic that she's going to use you as the fall
28:48
guy, the scapegoat, she's going to lie about the fact that what you had just
28:54
mentioned about your interactions with her and ultimately it was her deal.
29:00
And, you know, there's so much reporting about this.
29:02
That goes back to the fact that, you know, a week prior, Trump was having
29:07
a meeting in the Oval Office and Kash Patel was there, Kash Patel has come
29:12
out publicly on numerous forums saying, yes, 10,000 National Guard troops a week
29:19
before January six, uh, general Millie was in the oval office when that happened.
29:26
So, you know, to me, it's just political.
29:31
I think that it's, uh, tragically political in so many ways.
29:37
And, um, even the national guard, the national guard was standing by,
29:41
like you said, they, they were within eyesight, but why didn't they come?
29:45
It was probably because it was political and, uh, is that how you feel?
29:50
Steven Sund: Absolutely.
29:51
They were, again, concerned for, uh, for the, for the optics.
29:54
So you go back and there's, again, there's so much that, that ended
29:58
up tying together in the book.
30:00
You talk about the January 3rd and January 4th call with Millie, uh,
30:04
Christopher, um, Christopher Miller, the Secretary of Defense, and, um,
30:09
trying to think who else was on some of the calls with, um, over, over at the
30:13
White House, they're having some calls.
30:15
It turns out now that Chris Miller, the Secretary of Defense, and General Milley,
30:18
who's the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he really has an advisory role.
30:22
Um, but they had been so concerned, think about this, days in advance of
30:25
January 6th, they had been so concerned about violence occurring at the Capitol,
30:29
that they had talked about locking down Washington, D. C., and revoking the, the
30:34
permits issued up at Capitol grounds.
30:36
I'm the one that issues those permits.
30:38
They never told me a thing about their concerns.
30:41
Yet, January 4th, You have Miller, um, um, Miller, Christopher Miller put out a
30:47
memo restricting National Guard from even carrying any civil disobedience gear, um,
30:52
for the very violence they're expecting.
30:54
I, I, you know, what's interesting is, is it's a program called DSCA,
30:58
Defense Support for Civil Authorities.
30:59
It's where the military, either National Guard or active duty military, can
31:04
be brought in to help support civil authorities, whether it's national
31:07
disasters, like the wildfires, uh, COVID, or something like this.
31:13
There's ways to bring them in.
31:14
There's an Emergency Authorization Act.
31:16
There's a media authorization, but for me, it would have been
31:20
the Emergency Authorization Act.
31:21
I've actually been asked by the Department of Defense, uh, when I was
31:24
with D.C. To teach DSCA to foreign governments that were looking to kind
31:28
of develop the same kind of program.
31:30
Um, the Emergency Authorization Act says that when a civil authority, like me,
31:36
calls with a legitimate request, like what we had on January 6th, the commanding
31:41
general of whatever agency, whatever, um, uh, DoD agency I'm requesting it from has
31:47
authorization to immediately give life and death, uh, support life and death,
31:51
um, uh, support for the, uh, the request while seeking presidential approval.
31:56
Well, Crystal Miller put out that memo on January 4th that basically
32:00
restricted that that no longer was valid.
32:02
So even when I was sitting there making repeated calls to William Walker from 1:49
32:07
all the way through the evening multiple times saying, Hey, where are you guys?
32:11
Um, they weren't coming because Miller had put that memo out there.
32:15
Um, when, you know, I now think it was because he was concerned that Trump
32:20
might invoke the insurrection act might try and deploy the military to affect
32:24
the, uh, the outcome of the election.
32:26
Uh, so I think you had a number of people down at the white house that
32:29
was, you know, plotting, you know, politically, why they wanted to keep the
32:32
military away from the, uh, the Capitol.
32:34
Again, it was all about the optics.
32:36
And what the kicker is, think about this.
32:38
So, 5:44, they finally get National Guard up there.
32:42
By 5:44, we had all the protesters out of the building.
32:44
We were pushing protesters off Capitol Square, which is, you
32:47
know, the immediate, the immediate streets right around the Capitol,
32:50
and push them off Capitol grounds.
32:52
So, by the time they got sworn in and they got deployed out to their, their
32:55
perimeter assignments, it was over.
32:57
I really, at that point, I didn't even need them.
33:00
But you know what the military does when they finally get on post?
33:03
They, they line up with all their ride gears, their shields, their
33:06
helmets, their batons, and they take a picture and put it on Military Times
33:10
magazine of them standing in line with the Capitol in the background.
33:13
The very damn thing that General Piott had said he was so worried about.
33:17
It just proves that wasn't, wasn't what they're concerned about.
33:20
Dennis Collins: You've been listening to part two of a three
33:23
part conversation with former U. S. Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund.
33:28
Join us right here next week on the Heroes Behind the Badge podcast,
33:33
the final part, part three.
33:35
Chief Sund will give us his account of the aftermath of
33:39
January 6th and the lasting impact.
33:42
You don't want to miss that episode.
33:44
To learn more about how you can support law enforcement, go to behindbadge.org.
33:52
Join the hundreds of thousands of Americans showing their
33:55
support for law enforcement.
33:57
That's behind the badge.org.
34:01
I'm Dennis Collins, and for my colleagues, Bill Erfurth and
34:05
Craig Floyd, it's goodbye for now.
34:08
We'll see you here next week for the next episode, the final conversation.
34:13
Chief Steven Sund, right here on Heroes Behind the Badge.
34:18
Real stories, about real cops, and we expose the fake news about police,
34:24
and we'll give you the real truth.