Saundra Kiczenski, a 56-year-old from Michigan, told Bender she was "confident" that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, according to the book
"Frankly, We Did Win This Election," published earlier this week. In the book, Bender detailed former President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election after becoming the first incumbent in decades to fail to win reelection.
"We weren't there to steal things," Kiczenski, who entered the Capitol on January 6, said, according to the book excerpt. "We weren't there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government." But when Trump took to Twitter to urge his supporters to go home, Kiczenski said she felt sad and confused, Bender wrote. "We were supposed to be fighting until the end," she said.
According to the book, then Vice President Mike Pence, who oversaw the congressional vote,
refused to evacuate the Capitol despite the Secret Service urging him to leave. Tim Giebels, Pence's lead security agent, asked the vice president "twice" to evacuate the building, to which Pence said "I'm not leaving the Capitol," according to the book. "We need to get back tonight," Pence told top US officials on a call, according to the book. "We can't let the world see that our process of confirming the next president can be delayed."