A pre-recorded testimony from an anonymous national security professional stated that Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail were ‘starting to fear for their own lives’ was played by Representative Elaine Luria at the Jan 6 committee on July.

In the clip, the staffer whose identity had been masked for security reasons stated that Secret Service members were making “a lot of personal calls over the radio.” They went on to say that the Pence’s detail was concerned that the situation as about to get “very ugly.” 

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At the hearing, Rep Luria described the details of a chat between National Security Council staffers, stating that they had learnt that the windows to Capitol Hill were being kicked in at 2:13. At 2:16 Pence was ‘pulled’ by Secret Service, which meant that he had been evacuated from the Senate. She stated: “At 2:24 the staff noted that the Secret Service agents at the Capitol did not ‘sound good right now.'”

The security member recalled the events of the day as “chaos” stating that the reason they had written in their chat with other security personnel, ‘service in the Capitol’ was because they were “running out of options” and were getting “nervous.”

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According to them, both Secret Service members and National Security Council staff had come very close to having to “use lethal force or worse.”

The staffer testified that they didn’t know what was going on, if the VP had been compromised or not, because they didn’t have “visibility.” The anonymous source said towards the end of the clip that Secret Service agents were “screaming and saying things, like, say goodbye to the family, like the floor needs to know this is going to a whole another level soon.”

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The Secret Service has come under intense scrutiny from the Jan 6 committee in recent days as it was revealed that numerous text exchanges had been deleted by them. On July 21, the Department of Homeland Security said that it would be launching a criminal investigation into the matter.