- Newt Gingrich blamed Nancy Pelosi for the Capitol riot, saying it was her job to secure the building.
- "I think she is the person who is most responsible for what happened," Gingrich told Laura Ingraham.
- He said she "failed so totally in her job" to make sure the Capitol riot did not happen.
Newt Gingrich blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Capitol riot, saying it was her responsibility to ensure the Capitol was secure on January 6, 2021.
On "The Ingraham Angle" on Thursday, the first anniversary of the insurrection, the host Laura Ingraham asked if Gingrich, a former House speaker, thought it was Pelosi's responsibility to secure the Capitol before the riot.
"I think she is the person who is most responsible for what happened," Gingrich told Ingraham. "It was her job to ensure there was adequate police."
He added, "A lot of this is a dance by the Democrats who don't want us to look very closely at what actually happened."
He also accused the Democratic-led committee investigating the event of looking at things too politically and of not focusing on the "ringleaders" who provoked it.
"As a former speaker, I was deeply offended that anybody would do what they did on the Capitol grounds," Gingrich said. "But as a former speaker, I was also really offended that the current speaker, Pelosi, failed so totally in her job, which was to make sure this didn't happen."
The congressional investigation into the insurrection is looking into what led hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump to storm the Capitol as Congress certified the results of the 2020 presidential election.
So far, 738 people have been charged in connection with the riot.