Tucker's Explosive Interview With Former Capitol Police Chief: The Story Fox Didn't Air, Pelosi, and Who Knew What When

Tucker Carlson’s latest episode of his show on X, formerly known as Twitter, aired Thursday and it certainly was a bang-up one. It featured an interview with former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

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As Tucker explained, he’d filmed an interview with Sund earlier in the year (when he was still working for Fox). It was scheduled to run on Monday, April 24, Carlson said. Then Carlson was let go from Fox that Monday morning and the interview never aired. Because the interview footage is owned by Fox, Tucker can’t run it. So instead he invited Sund to come on his X show and tell what he knew.

It’s a fascinating story that everyone should watch. This is the whole thing, almost an hour, but I’ll also include some clips in case you can’t listen to the whole thing.

One of the biggest points Sund made was that it was revealed after Jan. 6 that other agencies had intelligence of how dangerous it might be but that wasn’t passed on to him. He said the intelligence he received indicated it would be like other MAGA rallies. But the FBI, the DHS, and even the military had intel suggesting more was afoot. But they didn’t tell Sund or put out any alerts as they might normally do, “But there were zero for Jan. 6,” Sund said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Sund wasn’t told, even though he was on a conference call around midday on January 5 with the law enforcement leaders from the D.C. Metro Police and the FBI (head of the Washington Field Office Steve D’Antuono). He even had the military and the National Guard on the call, he said. But he was not told about the intel. Sund explained it wasn’t only him, the head of the MPD also was not told. He said a new report that came out last month revealed that Antuono had a lot of information.

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“It’s almost like they wanted the intelligence to be watered down for some reason,” Sunds mused. He said it was handled very differently by the intelligence agencies and military than it normally would have been.

Sund said the law required him to go to the Capitol Police Board to get approval in advance for bringing in National Guard. He says he was denied twice before Jan. 6 because of “optics” by the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms. I wrote about this two years ago, but still most Americans don’t know this.

He said it was crazy that even when they were under attack he has to go to those two people to get permission to bring in help. He immediately contacted the House Sgt. at Arms Paul Irving at 12:58 on Jan. 6, asking to bring in the National Guard, telling him it was bad, and an emergency.

But in response, Irving said he was going to have to “run it up the channel” and “get back to you.” Sund told Tucker that Irving didn’t have to run it up the channel in an emergency; Irving could have authorized him. But he didn’t. And “the chain” was then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sund said.

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Sund said he next called the Senate Sgt. at Arms Mike Stenger. Stenger said they should wait until they heard back from Paul Irving.

Imagine how desperate Sund had to have been when he got that kind of a response, hampering him from properly responding. He said in the next 71 minutes he made 32 calls, desperate for help. He kept calling asking where were they on getting approval and he was told, “Any minute now.” Finally, at 2:09, 71 minutes later, he was approved to bring in help and the National Guard.

Sund responded that he couldn’t “fathom why” it took so long, that he was telling them how bad it was. “It was on TV.”

Sund said it doesn’t seem like people want to get to the bottom of why that was.

Sund said that as far as he knows, Irving has never explained why he didn’t approve so long. He also said that Jan. 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said that “Speaker Pelosi was off limits” meaning people wouldn’t get to see any of her records in the process of the “investigation.” I reported earlier about how the January 6 Committee also seems to have not turned over or deleted records that they were required to turn over to the House. They didn’t seem to want to look into the failure of the security on that day.

Sund says he doesn’t know what happened to Irving. Sund said he was close to Nancy Pelosi, “Oh, yes, he was very loyal.”

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Sund said even after they got approval through Irving, he was still getting flack from a general in the Pentagon who was on a call with him, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and the head of the Metro Police. That general said that he didn’t like the “optics” of sending in the National Guard. Sund said he told him, it was “life or death.” He said Robert Conte, the MPD Chief, couldn’t believe it.

Then came the shooting of Ashli Babbitt and Sund pleaded with the general there was now a shooting going on. Sunds said he yelled at the general, “There are shots fired, is that urgent enough for you now?”

Sund explained they sent the troops that had been near the Capitol back to the D.C. Armory and the Guard didn’t respond with the evening troops until 6 p.m. He said while he was begging for help, the Pentagon sent people to protect generals’ houses, but not the Capitol.

By the time the National Guard showed up, it was over and they weren’t needed. He said instead some of them took pictures for a military magazine, with the Capitol in the background. So much for “optics.” He said the D.C. National Guard was very upset that they had not been allowed to respond. Sund explained that New Jersey State Police got there before the National Guard because of all the drama.

Sund said Gen. Milley must have had some concerning intel if he was talking about locking down the city beforehand, yet that wasn’t passed along.

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Carlson asked about Federal agents or informants in the crowd. Sund said he didn’t know, but it could be because it would be common to have plainclothes people for such an event. He said FBI official Jill Sanborn talked about the FBI taking “overt” action and then reports that the FBI had been tracking 18 or 19 people they regarded as “domestic terrorists” according to the GAO. And that of course it would be standard to have plainclothes folks involved, given those factors. Yet none of this information was ever shared with him.

Then Tucker gets into the question of Ray Epps. Sund raised a great point about Epps, noting that he covered his mouth before he spoke to the man at the barrier who then attacked the barrier. Epps has said he told the man don’t hurt the officers, they were on our side. Sund asked if that was what he was saying, why wasn’t he shouting it to everyone, why did he cover his mouth?

Sund then describes how Nancy Pelosi went on television the next day, blamed the leadership of the Capitol Police, and she “lies about me.” Pelosi then made Yogananda Pittman, one of his underlings — the head of intelligence — Acting Chief. But Pittman didn’t ultimately get the position because of resistance from the officers, instead she got a Chief of Police position at UC Berkeley in the Bay Area near where Pelosi lives.

Tucker asked why would you promote the head of intelligence if there was an intelligence failure. Then Sund also explained that Pittman has some kind of odd leave agreement where she would start the new job, but not officially leave the Capitol Police until months later. That also raises a lot of questions as to what was going on there.

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When asked if the January 6 Committee addressed any of these issues, failures, or questions, Sund replied, “No, sir.”

How can someone not look at all this and not think something is odd, Sund said.

He said the only other sort of long interview he’s done was with 60 Minutes and they only used about three minutes of what he said. That’s why so many people don’t know what the facts are – most of the liberal media can’t be bothered.

“This didn’t have to happen. It was screwed up from the get-go,” Sund said.

But Sund had one more stunner, and it was about the riots around the White House in 2020 when St. John’s Church was burned. He said that someone “higher up” stopped the head of the MPD from providing aid to the White House to protect it. He said he knew it wasn’t from the Chief of Police so it had to be someone higher. He said they were prevented from going on White House grounds to help defend it. But according to Sund, in that case, the charges were dropped against the rioters. The disparity of how the justice was applied was “scary,” Sund summed it up.

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Unfortunately, Sund just said it all, we are in a truly scary place when we can no longer trust that the rule of law is being applied equally.

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