Pence’s security detail wanted to call family, feared for their lives during the Capitol riot – Europe Times News

In chilling new testimony about the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the House Investigative Committee showed that members of the Secret Service for Vice President Mike Pence were so fearful for his and their safety that they “screamed” that other officials have to say goodbye to their families.

A White House national security official whose identity and voice had been obscured described the appeals in testimony played by the Jan. 6 committee at a public hearing Thursday night.

The official was asked why, after a mob that Donald Trump sent to the Capitol attacked Congress in an attempt to stop Pence certifying Joe Biden’s election victory, White House staff officially recorded that: “Service at the Capitol sounds not good at the moment”.

The official said: “The members of the VP detail began to fear for their own lives at that point. There was a lot of shouting. There were a lot of personal phone calls over the radio, so it was disturbing. I don’t like to talk about it.

“There were phone calls to say goodbye to relatives and so on and so forth… on the floor for whatever reason, the VP detail thought this was going to get really ugly.”

Such terrified and panicked messages were relayed from the Capitol around the time Trump tweeted his supporters a now infamous 2:24 pm message in which he did nothing to calm the riots.

The then president said, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what it took.”

The news that Secret Service members believed they would be murdered by the pro-Trump mob comes amid significant tension between the Secret Service and the Jan. 6 commission.

The commission served a subpoena to the agency for all text communications the day before the Capitol attack and the day itself. The Secret Service said the messages had been erased. It subsequently delivered only one message to the committee.

Nine dead have been linked to the Capitol riots, including law enforcement officers killed by suicide. Nearly 900 people have been charged, some with seditious conspiracy charges. The commission is seeking to establish grounds for criminal charges against Trump himself. The Justice Department should file charges.

In Thursday’s primetime hearing on events on January 6, the national security official said: “I think there were discussions about reinforcements coming, but again it was just chaos, they were just yelling.

“If they get nervous and they’re running out of options, it sounds like we got really close to using deadly options or worse.

“At that moment I don’t know anymore? Has the VP been compromised? I don’t know. We had no view. But if they’re yelling and saying things like ‘Say goodbye to the family,’ then the floor needs to know that this is going to be a very ‘nother level’ soon.”

Referring to controversy over the Secret Service’s missing texts, presidential historian Michael Beschloss tweeted“For all those Secret Service agents who seem to love and revere Trump, watch how he did nothing to defend Mike Pence’s agents on Jan. 6 when they called their frightened families to say goodbye forever. “