The committee spliced together the Secret Service radio traffic with footage of what the agents were seeing “as the protesters got just feet away from where the vice president was holding,” committee member Rep. Elaine Luria explained.
As footage played of rioters coming dangerously close to Pence’s location, we heard agents saying:
“They’ve entered the building! Hold. Harden that door!”
“If we lose any more time, we may have – we may lose the ability to leave. So, if we're going to leave, we need to do it now.”
“They’ve gained access to the second floor and I've got public about five feet away from me down here below.”
“There’s six officers between us and the people that are 5 to 10 feet away from me.”
“We’ve got smoke downstairs. Stand by. Unknown smoke downstairs.”
We have yet to learn the details behind the Secret Service’s suspicious deletions of its January 6 texts. But the agents assigned to Pence seemed to be doing the right thing on that day.
