Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a damning report Tuesday detailing how the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies repeatedly ignored, downplayed or failed to share warnings of violence before the attack on the Capitol.
The 106-page report, titled “Planned in Plain Sight,” highlighted and added to evidence already uncovered by the now-defunct House 6 committee, news reporting, and other congressional work to provide the most comprehensive picture yet of a cascading set of security and intelligence failures that culminated in the deadliest attack on the Capitol in centuries.
Staff members said Senate staff obtained thousands of additional documents from federal law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department, before the report was prepared. It contains multiple calls for armed violence, calls to occupy federal buildings, including the Capitol, and some of the clearest threats the FBI received but did little to act on, including a warning that the far-right group The Proud Boys was planning to kill people in Washington. murder.
“Our intelligence community has completely dropped the ball,” said Sen. Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He added: “Despite numerous tips and other intelligence warnings of violence on Jan. 6, the report showed that these agencies repeatedly — repeatedly — downplayed the threat level and failed to share the information they had with law enforcement partners.”
The report found that the FBI’s scrutiny of social media threats had “worsened several days before the attack,” as the agency changed contracts for external social media monitoring. The commission received internal emails that indicated that FBI officials were “surprised” by the timing of the contract change and “complained about the negative effect it would have on their monitoring capabilities leading up to Jan. 6.”
But the research made it clear that monitoring wasn’t the only problem. It blamed the FBI for not following through on a series of dire warnings.
On January 3, 2021, the FBI was made aware of multiple messages calling for violence, such as a Parler user saying, “Come armed.” On Jan. 4, Justice Department leaders noted multiple messages, including calls to “occupy federal buildings,” discussions of “invading the Capitol,” and individuals arming themselves “to commit political violence.”
Still, the report highlighted interviews with two FBI leaders who said they were unaware that Congress could be under siege.
“If everyone knew and the whole public knew they were going to storm Congress, I don’t know why one person didn’t tell us,” said Jennifer Moore, the special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office’s intelligence division. the FBI. the Senate investigators.
Jill Sanborn, former deputy director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, testified, “None of us had any information to suggest that individuals would storm and breach the Capitol.”
The performance of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis was also criticized. The report found that on Jan. 2, the agency discovered individuals were sharing a map of the Capitol online. One employee messaged another saying, “I feel like people are really going to try and hurt politicians.”
But agency analysts didn’t seem to take such threats seriously, even as it became clear that the violence warned about was becoming a reality. At 2:58 p.m. on Jan. 6, after police declared a riot and the Capitol was locked down, analysts noted internal online chatter that “called for more violent action,” but added that “there is no credible information to pass on at this time.” established.”
An FBI representative said it had been working with law enforcement agencies, including the Capitol Police, leading up to and on the day of Jan. 6: “We also have command posts set up and tactical assets ready to deploy should our partners ask for such help.”
The agency added that after the attack it had increased its focus on “quick information sharing” with law enforcement partners, and that it had also made “improvements to help investigators and analysts in all of our field offices during the investigative process.”
A Department of Homeland Security representative said that since the attack, the agency has “strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”
The report was not the first to analyze serious security vulnerabilities during and before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A bipartisan group of senators, including Mr. Peters, released a report in June 2021 outlining large-scale failures.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol also described a “colossal intelligence failure,” revealing tips such as a Dec. 26 warning that the Proud Boys were “assembling a group large enough to was to march into D.C. armed and outnumber the police. so they are unstoppable.”
That committee, which took on one of the largest investigative efforts in congressional history, drew some criticism from some of its own staff for focusing heavily on former President Donald J. Trump’s role in the plan to overturn the election of 2020, and not put as much emphasis on the failure of law enforcement intelligence.
Mr Peters said his committee’s report was intended “to fill in some gaps”.
