In a hearing before the House Oversight Committee that took place on September 19, former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund explained why the National Guard was not present at the Capitol on January 6th to provide security, claiming that the U.S. House Sergeant at Arms, Paul Irving, rejected the idea, said that then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would “never go for it.”

Former Chief Sund explained that that denial was the reason for the National Guard not being present on the day, and thus the facility lacking the security detail that might have kept the crowd from entering the building.

Explaining what happened during his meeting with Sergeant at Arms Irving, Sund testified, “I went into his office, again 9:24 in the morning. … and immediately went up and said, ‘Hey, I’d like to bring in the National Guard to support me on, to assist me on the perimeter because when we have a joint session of Congress, it takes a lot of our personnel inside.‘”

Continuing, Mr. Sund added that the emphasis seemed to be more on the optics than what was necessary, though the “intelligence” on the matter did come up second. He said, “But immediately, as soon as I asked him, his first response was: ‘I don’t know. I don’t like the optics of that.’  And his second response was, ‘Besides, the intelligence doesn’t support it.’”

Continuing, he said he talked to Senate Sergeant at Arms Stender about the issue and Stenger told him that Irving had said Pelosi would “never go for” bringing in the National Guard. “I said, ‘Mr. Stenger, you came up with that response fairly quickly for me to call Gen. Walker.’ And he told me Paul Irving had called him ahead of time and said: ‘Sund came here looking for the National, asking for the National Guard. We got to come up with another plan. Pelosi will never go for it,” Mr. Sund testified.

Watch the hearing with Chief Sund here:

Mr. Sund’s testimony is somewhat in line with what former President Trump claimed about the security measures on that day. In an interview with “Meet the Press,” he said, “I offered two days before — two or three days before — 10,000 soldiers, right? And they were going to go — because everybody was telling me, I knew it was going to be big in terms of the crowd, because everybody I spoke to said, “Hey. I’m going down on January 6th. I’m going down. I’m going to listen to your speech,” et cetera. And there were other speak — I wasn’t the only speaker. There were many speakers. But wait a minute. I offered 10,000 people to the mayor of Washington D.C. and Nancy Pelosi, both of them, Nancy Pelosi and to the mayor of Washington. And they turned it down flat. And the police commissioner was very nasty about it to her. And he testified. And here’s what happened. The January 6th un-Select Committee of thugs and horrible people, the un-Select Committee destroyed all the evidence.“