Steven Sund’s version of events cuts straight through years of political spin. Days before January 6, he says he saw the danger coming and formally requested National Guard support. That request, by law, had to pass through the Capitol Police Board — including the House Sergeant at Arms, who answered to Nancy Pelosi. It was rejected. When the Pentagon later offered Guard assistance, Sund says he still couldn’t accept without that same approval. The legal authority simply wasn’t his to exercise.Once the riot began, Sund describes more than an hour of desperate pleas while the Capitol fell under siege and officers were overrun. Approval, he says, was finally granted only after 70 critical minutes were lost. Yet after the chaos, Pelosi swiftly signed off on a fortress-like military presence around the Capitol. The contrast is damning: speed when the cameras were rolling, hesitation when it mattered most. Sund’s account doesn’t clear Trump of every criticism, but it demolishes the claim that he alone “refused” or “delayed” the Guard. It forces a harder question Washington still refuses to confront — not just who wanted to score points from January 6, but who actually held the power, and failed, to prevent the worst of it.