Three years ago, [Los Angeles] Times reporter Sarah D. Wire wrote about her experience, typing it out on a cellphone from the House safe room. She was one of three reporters to make it inside.
Now, with the aid of time and surveillance footage recently made available by the House, along with additional firsthand accounts from Rep. Norma Torres (D-Pomona), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and freelance congressional correspondent Matt Laslo, Wire provides a more expansive view of what it was like inside the Capitol that day.
I knew there was going to be a massive protest in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Then-President Trump had been talking about it for weeks. I knew violence was likely.
But I worked inside the U.S. Capitol, the safest place on Earth, as I reminded my husband the night before — I was worried about the reporters who would be outside.
Senators and representatives counted the votes in alphabetical order of states. When they reached Arizona, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) objected to recording the state’s 11 electoral votes. The House and Senate retired to their respective chambers to debate the objections.
My phone buzzed at 1:41 p.m. — I received a Capitol Police alert saying House office buildings had been locked down.
At 1:42 p.m., congressional correspondent Matt Laslo noticed Pence’s Secret Service detail in the hallway outside the Senate chamber. “You could feel their nervousness,” Laslo said.
The Capitol shook with the force of percussion grenades, and smoke rose above the crowd. At 2:11 p.m., Laslo recorded the rioters’ first breach of the Capitol, at the Senate-wing doors.
Officers scrambled to lock the chamber doors at 2:13 p.m.; Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), third in line for the presidency, was pulled out of the chamber one minute later.
Torres received a text at 2:18 p.m.: “Capitol: Internal security threat: move inside office/lock doors, seek cover and remain silent. USCP.”
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a former combat Marine, stood on a table and yelled instructions to other members on how to use the [air filtration] hoods.
Police began to escort lawmakers off the House floor through the Speaker’s lobby. Representatives in the gallery were told to get on their hands and knees and crawl.
A few lawmakers still on the floor
assisted plainclothes officers in shoving a bookcasein front of the chamber’s main entry — the same one the president passes through for the State of the Union address.
The Secret Service rushed Pence out of the Senate and down a private set of stairs at 2:25 p.m.
Staff members carried large boxes full of electoral votes, preventing rioters from gaining control of the official records sent by the states declaring which candidate received the most votes.
Two floors above [the escaping senators in the tunnels], at 2:44 p.m., the first rioter reached the door
Pence used to escape from the Senate.
In a burst of strength, the crowd shoved police officers backward until they reached the main House chamber doors at 2:36 p.m.
The glass on the main doors began to crack and shattered. I peeked over a chair into the chamber as then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) attempted to reason with the rioters who were trying to push their way in.
The gunshot [that killed Ashli Babbitt as she crawled through a hole in the glass] and the tear gas immediately quieted the crowd.
“Can I do the hardest part of my job and ask you what you are thinking right now?” I asked [Rep. Torres].
“It’s horrible that this is America, this is the United States of America, and this is what we have to go through because Trump has called homegrown terrorists to come to the Capitol and invalidate people’s votes,” she replied.
Do you think there is solid evidence of that, or is it your suspicion only? [silly smiley parser]
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