U.S. Strategic Command learned of the seriousness of the incident after watching a video played at the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, showing Pence, his Secret Service agents and a military officer carrying the folder with classified nuclear launch information coming down a flight of stairs inside the Capitol to get to security, the official said.
“When the hooligans reached the top of the stairs, they were less than 30 meters from where the vice president was taking shelter with his family, and were just a few meters from one of the doors of this chamber,” Del. Stacey Plaskett, a of impeachment managers, explained at the Senate trial on Wednesday. In a video, the crowd can be heard shouting “Hang Mike Pence” while standing at an open Capitol door.
It is not clear whether other elements of the government’s national security, such as the National Security Council or senior Pentagon officials, were aware of the seriousness of the position of Pence and his team.
On January 6, the military officer managed to maintain control of the “football” reserves at all times and the president was inside the White House, the official said. Even if the troublemakers had succeeded, they could not have used any of the information because of the system’s security controls, the official said.
Since they never lost control of “football” and then President Donald Trump was safe, they did not have to disable Pence’s system. But the incident raises the question of whether “football” status has been sufficiently accounted for at all times.
The Pentagon declined to comment on Pence’s video due to sensitivity around nuclear weapons issues. The National Security Council also declined to comment.
“I would not be discussing specific command and control over strategic nuclear forces,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. The Defense Department’s inspector general conducted a review of the events on January 6, but it is not publicly known whether “football” is included in that investigation.
The video of Pence and the advisor in charge of football was included in the presentation by the House’s impeachment managers on Wednesday, which featured images of Capitol security cameras never seen before, images of Washington police body cameras and radio dispatches from the police. The presentation provided the most complete view to date of how the Capitol was invaded and the serious threat that protesters posed to everyone on Capitol Hill, including senators who now serve as juries in Trump’s impeachment trial.
The videos included footage of police officers being beaten by protesters, as well as images showing how close the crowd inside the Capitol came to reaching lawmakers. House managers showed security footage of senators fleeing their chamber, with Capitol police among them and protesters just steps away.
CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb, Manu Raju and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.