Pence’s brother says Pelosi wanted to bail after Jan. 6 attack

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.) traded barbs Thursday after Pence, the brother of former Vice President Mike Pence, accused the Speaker of not wanting to bring Congress back into session after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Pelosi forcefully rejected the Indiana congressman’s account that she had wanted to delay having the House and Senate certify President Biden’s 2020 election victory hours after the deadly Capitol riot.

“He completely does not know what he’s talking about,” Pelosi said when told about Pence’s remarks by a reporter from The Hill. “I was a force for coming back from the start, and I was glad it was bipartisan that we all agreed to come back.”

“But he knows not of what he speaks, and he can ask his brother if he wants to get any information,” she added.

On Jan. 6, rioters who had breached the Capitol were hunting for the vice president that day in hopes of stopping him from his role overseeing Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory. Dozens chanted “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!” and some had erected a gallows outside the Capitol.

Greg Pence, who was with his brother during the attack and evacuation of the Capitol on Jan. 6, praised the former vice president Thursday for carrying out his duties to certify the election just hours after the assault on the Capitol. The congressman also suggested that Pelosi took the opposite approach that day and had wanted to delay the certification for several days, the first time such an accusation has been leveled at the Speaker.  

Mike Pence “was a hero. He wouldn’t leave. He said, ‘I’m going to gavel back in,’” Greg Pence told reporters in a rare interview in the hallways of the Capitol. “Nancy Pelosi said, ‘We can’t come back for two or three days,’ and [the vice president] said, ‘As soon as the Capitol Police, the heroes, clear the building, I’m gaveling back in.’”

When the House gaveled back in that day, Pence was among the 138 Republicans who voted to object to the election results in Pennsylvania. 

He also voted on Wednesday against bipartisan legislation that would create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, even though some of the perpetrators had been seemingly trying to assassinate his brother.

“Hanging Judge Nancy Pelosi is hellbent on pushing her version of partisan justice complete with a hand-picked jury that will carry out her pre-determined political execution of Donald Trump before law enforcement officials have completed their investigation,” Greg Pence said in a statement. 

On Thursday, the congressman joined all House Republicans in voting against a $1.9 billion funding bill to upgrade Capitol security in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.