While some people have dismissed the chants of Capitol rioters to “Hang Mike Pence!” as nothing more than hyperbole, the January 6th hearings have made it clear that they were dead serious. Previously, witnesses to the events of that day testified that Donald Trump himself believed that maybe Pence deserved it. And during Thursday night’s primetime hearing, we learned that members of Pence’s own Secret Service detail were so convinced of the imminent danger they were in that some called their families and other loved ones to say goodbye.
We asked a security professional who had been working in the White House complex on January 6th what was meant by the comment that the Secret Service agents did not “sound good right now.”
The professional discusses what they heard from listening to the incoming radio traffic: pic.twitter.com/lDn8sNMaYR
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) July 22, 2022
As Mediaite reports, a member of Pence’s security detail—who remained anonymous and whose face and voice were concealed—testified about the disturbing scene he witnessed that day, and was very emotional while doing so:
“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their lives. There was a lot of yelling. A lot of very personal calls over the radio, so it was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it, but there were calls to say goodbye to family members, so on and so forth… For whatever the reason was on the ground, the VP detail thought this was about to get very ugly.”
When asked what prompted the security agent to officially log the details of what he described as the “chaos” on the ground, he admitted that it was because it seemed as if the agents “were running out of options” and that they came “very close to either Service having to use lethal options or worse.”
You can hear the full clip above.
(Via Mediaite)