MADISON, Wis. — On Aug 28th, the New York Times reported that Bryan Steil’s House Administration Committee released a choppy compilation of video footage filmed while an armed pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to rewrite the truth of January 6th and redirect blame for the deadly insurrection away from Donald Trump and participating insurrectionist Republican members of Congress like Derrick Van Orden. 

“Bryan Steil has spent years bending over backwards to rewrite history and protect Donald Trump from accountability for inciting the deadly mob to storm the Capitol. It’s irresponsible and dangerous, but no amount of spin will make voters forget how Bryan Steil used his position in DC to shield Donald Trump from accountability for his attack on our democracy on January 6th,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Deputy Communications Director Haley McCoy. “As the Chairman of the House Committee on Administration, Bryan Steil has been all too willing to do the bidding of the MAGA majority, but pushing misleading and dangerous revisionist history about January 6th is a new low, even for him.”

The New York Times: House G.O.P. Releases Jan. 6 Videos of Pelosi, Seeking to Shift Blame From Trump
By: Luke Broadwater

House Republicans on Wednesday made their latest attempt to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, releasing a video compilation that sought to shift blame away from former President Donald J. Trump and onto former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was pursued that day by a violent mob of Trump supporters.

The Republican-controlled House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight released video clips, some previously unseen, shot for an HBO documentary about Ms. Pelosi. In them she is shown on the day of the riot venting her rage about the rampage at the Capitol, criticizing security officials for failing to anticipate and prevent it, and saying she felt responsible for their failure.

In the recordings, Ms. Pelosi rails against Mr. Trump and his role in firing up his supporters who stormed the Capitol, but also repeatedly suggests that she and her staff should have pushed the Capitol Police harder to make sure they were better prepared as Mr. Trump summoned thousands of his supporters to Washington to protest the transfer of power from the Trump administration to the Biden administration.

“I don’t care what they say — they should have had much more anticipation about the National Guard,” Ms. Pelosi said at one point during the footage.

At another point, she said: “I can’t believe the stupidity. I take full responsibility.”

In yet another clip, Ms. Pelosi hinted that Capitol Police officials might have deliberately failed to prepare enough, perhaps because they were sympathetic to Mr. Trump and his supporters.

“They thought these people would act civilized?” Ms. Pelosi said, sitting in the back of a car as her security detail whisked her away from an overrun Capitol to safety. “They thought these people gave a damn?”

She added: “Shame on us. I’m suspicious of their motivation, to tell you the truth.”

The video was shot for a documentary titled “Pelosi in the House” made by the filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, Ms. Pelosi’s daughter.

Republicans, who have been working for years to absolve Mr. Trump for what happened on Jan. 6, used the footage as a fresh opportunity to blame the former speaker for the attack, when more than 150 police officers were injured and a handful of them ultimately lost their lives.

[…]

In fact, Ms. Pelosi was not solely responsible for the security of the Capitol that day. While the speaker wields considerable influence, security is the job of the Capitol Police, which is controlled by a board that includes one security official appointed by the speaker and one by the Senate leader, who at the time was Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky.

Ian Krager, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, denounced the Republicans’ efforts.

“Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed again and again that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination on Jan. 6,” Mr. Krager said. “The speaker of the House is not in charge of the security of the Capitol Complex — on Jan. 6 or any other day of the week.”

In the video clips, Ms. Pelosi repeatedly made clear she believed that the blame for the attack fell on Mr. Trump, who spread lies about massive voter fraud stealing the 2020 election from him, fired up a rowdy crowd of his supporters near the White House and directed them to march to the Capitol while Congress was meeting to certify the election.

“I think our focus has to be on the president. Let’s not divert ourselves,” she said at one point, discussing a statement she would issue calling for Mr. Trump to be removed from office.

“There is a domestic enemy in the White House,” Ms. Pelosi said at another moment. “Let’s not mince words about this.”

The leaders of the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee also opted to focus more on the actions of Mr. Trump that led to the assault on the Capitol than the security failures that allowed the complex to be overrun.

[…]