Steve Sund remembers the exact moment he knew Jan. 6, 2021, was going to be a bad day.

It was “12:53 p.m.,” he said. “We’re dealing with the pipe bomb over at the Capitol Hill Club and somebody said, ‘Hey chief, we’ve got a crowd approaching our west front.’ ”

At the time, Sund was chief of the U.S. Capitol Police and he knew his officers were unprepared. He said he had been denied budget requests for more riot gear and in the days leading up to Jan. 6, he had been denied additional resources he had requested.

“It was a terrible day,” he said. “As chief up there, I saw what happened. I saw what my officers went through. It was terrible, the saddest part is it could have been prevented.”

Sund was publicly blamed for the security failures that day and called out by name by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The next day, he was pressured to turn in his resignation. Even as he aggressively revealed there had been failures at multiple levels of government.

“It’s been a tough four years,” said Sund during an interview outside the U.S. Capitol he once protected.

In recent weeks, a House subcommittee published the results of its Jan. 6 investigation. It found Sund had been exonerated by the evidence.

“It’s great to finally see that in writing,” he said.

As for how history should view Jan. 6, he said it was a very bad day and what happened shouldn’t be downplayed or exaggerated.

“I’ve heard it referred to as a walk in the park, just up there being tourists and I’ve heard it called about as bad as 9-11 or Pearl Harbor. I look at it as somewhere in the middle. It wasn’t a walk in the park and it wasn’t 9-11,” said the former chief.

Sund also said blanket pardons for those convicted of crimes that day would be wrong.

“My thing is I saw what happened. I saw what happened to my officers,” Sund said. “I don’t think a blanket pardon would be appropriate. I think we should consider each situation independently. There are some people who did bad things to police officers who need to be held accountable.”