in the most fortified city in america? on a day when the vice president and almost every lawmaker was inside and when everyone knew there was going to be a big rally expected at the capitol that day, now, coming up tonight, the person who was serving as the capitol police chief on january six , steven son , he will join us and help answer that question. and it's an extremely important question. as i said at the time, the january 6th committee, they had a predetermined outcome to go after donald trump, bludgeon him as much as possible. and that's why congressman jim jordan, congressman jim banks were off the committee. they were kicked off the committee. and only members that impeach donald trump were allowed on the committee. not exactly a fair committee. now, sadly, democrats are not interested in learning how the capitol is breached, why security failed so badly. but here's the saddest part to me. and it should be the whole country. and that is this whole saga. it is the very key and important information that we now know about intelligence that they had that was being ignored in the lead up to january six . and they should have come up with a comprehensive security plan to ensure this could never, ever happen. again, like securing a perimeter, kind of like at the white house. you know, they have those concrete barriers that prevent you from getting on 16 hundred pennsylvania avenue. then they have the big wrought iron fencing. we should all agree on this point. this is not a political point. protecting our institutions like our capital and every elected official, regardless of party. it needs to be a top priority. but for democrats and others, politicizing something in this case, smearing donald trump was the only thing that seem to matter to that committee. but you don't have to take little sean hannity's word for it. to their credit, even nbc news pointed out all of this during a report this year a little late, but they pointed it out. good for them. now to our nbc news exclusive, the january six committee's final report was more than eight hundred pages, but some material did not make the cut, including much of its findings on the failures of federal law enforcement leading up to the attack. >> the chief investigator of the january committee says the government could have prevented it had law enforcement agencies acted on the available intelligence. do you believe the attack on the capitol could have been successfully repelled? >> i think it would have been a lot different had law enforcement taken a more assertive, protective posture. the intel in advance was pretty specific, and it was enough, in our view, for law enforcement to have done a better job operationalizing a secure perimeter. law enforcement had a very direct role in contributing to really the failures, the security failures that led to the violence. >> people familiar with the committee's work tell nbc news members downplayed that finding because they wanted to keep the focus on former president trump. >> committee members dispute that haiti would not discuss internal deliberations. >> was this an intelligence failure? it was not an intelligence failure that we survive. we he says. >> the committee found the fbi, the department of homeland security and other agencies did not act on the intelligence they had, including this online threat forwarded to capitol police. jan 5th, calling on thousands to go to washington and help storm the capitol. in a statement to nbc news, the fbi said it sent all the intelligence it had to the capitol police. >> so the partisan trump hating january six committee with a predetermined outcome. sadly, buried the security breakdowns from its reports, even though the committee's own chief investigator found, quote, a lot of advance intelligence about law enforcement, about carrying weapons, about the vulnerability of the capitol and quote, the intel in advance was pretty specific and it was enough, in our view, for law enforcement to have done a better job. now, think about this. security officials, washington, d.c., they knew the massive crowd is going to be gathering for a rally only blocks away from the capitol on january 6th. in the days, the weeks leading up to january six , the fbi, other federal security agencies ,they were tracking what they describe as a large volume of intelligence showing violent agitators plotting, planning, scheming, an attack on our capitol . the u.s. capitol . and yet a few hundred capitol police were left to fend for themselves on a massive capitol complex spanning multiple huge buildings with dozens of entrances and one of the most important days of the year. so the question is , how on earth did this happen and why was this not the main focus of this committee that could have gone after trump and they could have done this part, the job that mattered to , frankly, which was more important to prevent it from ever happening again? the capitol police chief at the time, steven son , was begging for help before the riot. but according to sunde, his request for the national guard were rejected or delayed six separate times. watch this from jacinta's. when i asked paul irving for the national guard, he used the term optics. and what's interesting is i'm on the phone with the pentagon at 9:30 four , begging for the national guard deploy to assist my men and women and lieutenant general pide is using the term concern for the optics. i'll never forget it. quote, i'm concerned of the optics of the military standing in line with the capitol in the background. so here they are both using the exact same term. when you see the level of intelligence now that was out there, you're just dumbfounded by it. that didn't that didn't occur. those were lessons we should learn from september 11th that we still haven't learned by january six , intelligence was treated completely different on january six . >> and it usually is for major events in washington, d.c., optics. could there possibly be a worse optics than what we saw in january ? six and on such an important day, why take the risk protecting members of congress, the vice president and president of our capital should take priority, should they not? not optics. but instead of digging into the security failures, democrats, they conducted multiple investigations and of course, their impeachment and january six committee that focus almost solely on donald trump. and now there is no plan to prevent this from ever happening again. and because of their anti trump rage, they're not even able to conduct a serious investigation into a riot that they have been obsessing about for more than two years. and no safety measures have been put in place. pretty hypocritical. and it's also dangerous, especially from a group of people who never really seem to care about the riots. this was political bludgeoning for them and about real safety and security on january 6th. now, we all remember, for example, in the summer of 2020 five hundred and seventy four violent riots that summer, democrats all but they either told you nothing or they ignored them or they lied to you and told you they were mostly peaceful. what happened? we had dozens of dead americans. we had thousands of injured cops. they were hit with rocks and bottles and molotov cocktails. and worse, we saw looting and arson on a massive scale, billions and billions of dollars worth of property damage, zero two investigations from democrats in congress, no investigate into high ranking politicians like kamala harris that were out there supporting the l funds for the people involved in these, quote, activities, the rioting. others were pouring fuel on the fire by vilify cops and pushing the defund dismantle no bail laws of police departments. they did nothing as a federal courthouse in portland was lit on fire over and over and over and over again. there wasn't one single solitary committee meeting or committee put together to look into those five hundred and seventy four riots. they ignored the riot at the white house where secret service offices were attacked, you may recall, and the president was forced to evacuate that night to a bunker. most americans deplore all violent riots. we condemn every one of them. we condemn january six in real time on my radio show. and right here that night on this show, most americans want our elected officials, regardless of what their party affiliation is , to be safe and protected. this needs to transcend politics. you would think this is something democrats or republicans should be protecting together. and by the way, that would also include supreme court justices. they should be protected. there are laws against people protesting in front of their homes, but we're not enforcing those laws. for many democratic politicians, a violent riot is a political opportunity. why? i guess they think they can rally their base or certainly they don't want to alienate their base. and maybe that's why they weren't and aren't focused on very real security failures at the capitol on january six . or maybe it's because a prominent democrat is to blame for those security failures. according to the former capitol police chief steven sun , who will join us in a minute. the house sergeant at arms turned down his national guard request prior to january six because, quote, i will never get this by pelosi. joining us now with more, the author of the brand new book. it's called courage under fire . former capitol police chief steven sunde is with us . sir, thank you for being here. number one , i'm sorry, what happened to your fellow officers? that day? it breaks my heart. a lot of my family has it in law enforcement. when any law enforcement officers that is hurt. i'll let you tell the story. how many times in total do you remember? recall requesting the national guard? >> well, first of all, sean, thank you very much for having me on tonight. and i really appreciate you kind of talk about the 20, 20 riots coming up to january six . is that something i tied together in my book? there was a number of requests. i went on january 3rd requesting the national guard from paul irving. that was the first request for the for the national guard. i then went to mike stanger, who is the senate sergej arms now, paul irving, is a politically appointed by speaker pelosi. he initially, when i asked for the national guard on january 3rd, which was a sunday, was the first day of the new congress. he said specifically, quote, i don't like the optics. and besides, the intelligence didn't support it. his concern for the optics, i believe, goes back to pelosi's decision, that statement that she referred to the federal agents and national guard on the streets of america as storm troopers. and i think she just didn't want to look at storm troopers up on the hill. and then come january six . and i think what your what your viewers don't realize is the restrictions i have as the chief of police, i'm one of the only chiefs in the united states . i am the only chief in the united states that has a federal law, a law passed by members of congress that prevents me from calling in any federal resources, either in advance, like i try to do on january or even while i'm under attack without going and getting the politically appointed sergeant arms approval. so at twelve fifty three were attacked on the west front of the capitol. i'm watching my officers getting brutally beaten. >> i pick up the phone at twelve fifty five . i call for assistance our partner agency right right next door and then at twelve fifty i call paul irving ,speaker pelosi's appointee to the capitol police. board and tell them it's really bad on the bus. can i interrupt? is speaker of the house in charge of security at the capitol? >> so you have the politically appointed capitol police board that's put in place by the sergeant arms. it's put in place by pelosi. you have the senate sergeant arms have put in place by the senate leadership, and then you have the architect of the capitol that's put in place by the president . so you have three voting members. i'm a non-voting member. i'm the only non politically appointed non-voting member. and that's kind of how the security oversight works. but it was paul irving who immediately said, i'm going to run it up the chain. i'll never forget that running up the chain of his chain of command ends that speaker pelosi and i had to wait seventy one minutes to finally get an approval at two to nine p.m. before i could finally reach out and start calling in federal assistance. seventy one minutes, women, men and women fought on the brutally i mean fought heroically to prevent the capitol from being defended, i mean, from being penetrated. and it took 80 minutes before the first window was broken. so those were critical, essential minutes we're losing. let me go back a little bit and it was a number of days out of january six and the issue of the national guard first came up and you had not seen enough intelligence that convinced you that you would need the guard at that time within a day or two later. correct me if my timeline is wrong. my understanding is that new intelligence came in that alarmed you to such a degree that you felt that would absolutely need the guard. we would need other law enforcement help for the capitol police. is that how is that the timeline? is that an accurate timeline? no, that's that's actually not how it played out. so january 3rd, the morning of january 3rd, i went over to see paul irving at 9:30 four a.m. in the morning to request the national guard. the final intelligence assessment didn't come out to the evening of january 3rd. >> it was pretty much reviewed maybe on the fourth. but you got to understand that intelligence assessment didn't even indicate the level of threat that we now know existed. the significant threat that was out there, the fact that the fbi was tracking eighteen domestic terrorist suspects that were coming to the capital and my intelligence unit on the fourth, fifth and sixth put out intelligence. i was saying low probability of civil disobedience. and what's interesting is , is my my deputy chief and assistant chief over intelligence even had me approved, recommended approval for the permits that were taking place on capitol grounds. >> most of those approvals came through on the 4th. so, you know, here we are, the fifth. >> i've got a big video call with all the heads of intelligence, law enforcement agencies from the district of columbia, as well as military leadership in dc. and no one's no one's sending up the blue balloon or ringing any alarms about the intelligence. so my request for the national guard was based on my law enforcement experience. i knew i had a large perimeter. i knew we were going to have the vice president up on the hill as well, as well as both joint session of congress in place. and it was going to take a lot of my staffing. so i knew i didn't have significant staffing for the perimeter. and that's why i wanted the national guard to help stand on the perimeter to help defend . >> let me ask you this, because i just played in full that nbc news report that our our top law enforcement agencies, our top intelligence agencies had information about people plotting, planning and scheming and attack for that day. in other words, they knew this was a real clear and present danger and yet there were no reinforcements sent to you. it seems like they left you hanging out there to dry in retrospect, hearing that, what does that mean to you? >> i find that very concerning. i mean, having done many events, i mean, i've handled numerous inaugurations, numerous nces. i've never seen intelligence handled this way before and for events with far lesser threat streams, usually the fbi would do a briefing, a joint intelligence bulletin would call and do a video, a conference call, even none of that occurred. now, or find out dhs failed to share information, but my own intelligence unit didn't put some of the significant intelligence that i now know they they had into their final assessment. there's a risk, you could have been done. i was just going to say to better prepare us . yeah. what do you do? what did you think of the mayor declining, calling up the guard under any circumstances until she said it was okay by that point? was way too late? >> well, i find that concerning a find concerning the memorandum that's put in place, restricting any national guard from carrying any civil disobedience equipment. but i think the mayor's mayor's letter goes hand in hand with what speaker pelosi didn't want to see the storm troopers out on the streets. so it really tied our hands that day. and , you know, looking back at the way you started into this talk about the january six committee, what people need to realize the restrictions i had as the chief and ask yourself why the january six committee never requested that i come and publicly testify. >> think about that. i'm the chief of the capitol police to have me come down and publicly testify before january six committee because i think they were concerned it would begin to show what went on the six one on the days leading up to the six and what was the involvement of political leadership and their appointees. wow, this is a story that should have been highlighted. and frankly, we should have more security measures in place immediately. that should be a top priority. you agree with that last part? i have to run. i absolutely agree, sir. you know. >> all right, sun , first of all, thank you for your courage, your heroism. your service, and my condolences for the loss of life that day. >> thank you for. thank you very much, sir. now, clearly, the january 6th committee did absolutely nothing to improve security at the capitol more . you know, it was more of a weekly group session for those with trump derangement syndrome. my next guest, congressman jim jordan, was that was originally selected to be on the committee. but nancy pelosi wouldn't let him or congressman jim banks be on it. i guess he didn't hate donald trump enough. and , of course, government waste and abuse extends far beyond the january six committee currently, jordan is now investigating the ftc for targeting a private citizen, in this case, elon musk. they reportedly demanded that twitter turn over musk communications because they're very angry with how he's running his company with more chairman of the judiciary committee, jim jordan. you were kicked off the january committee and replaced you and jim banks, replaced by liz cheney and adam kinzinger, all people that voted to impeach trump would. do you believe, as far as the police chief just outlined, that we missed serious intelligence? and since this day, we've missed an opportunity to build in protections that should have been put in place long before. i think the tea had it exactly right, sean, when he said they were concerned about the optics and the chief was exactly right why they had that concern, because as you pointed in your great monologue, what happened the entire summer of twenty , twenty , the democrats all said it was peaceful protests, peaceful protest in portland for one hundred days. they assaulted the federal courthouse there. so with that backdrop, it's kind of tough then to do the right thing and make sure the capital is protected with additional security, additional law enforcement and the national guard. and i believe that's why nancy pelosi didn't do it. and , of course, we had what happened, what took place that day then then then then occurred because it wasn't the posture, the proper posture wasn't there to make sure the capitol was. don't we have every indication that, in fact, this committee had all of this intelligence, all of this information, and yet they chose not to highlight it. is that true? well, i don't i think they've sort of kept it from everyone. we knew