A Democratic-led Senate report blames the FBI and DHS for the January 6 riots

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly ignored intelligence warnings of violence on Jan. 6 and failed to provide sufficient data to Capitol officials, a damning new Senate report finds.

The The 106-page report titled “Planned in a clear way,examined the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) prior to the insurgency.

It details how the two agencies failed to recognize and warn of potential violence by some supporters of former President Donald Trump, and as a result the administration failed to prepare a security response for the day.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security repeatedly ignored intelligence warnings of violence on Jan. 6, a new Senate report says.

“Intelligence failures prior to January 6 did not constitute a failure to obtain intelligence indicating the possibility of violence,” the report said, noting that both agencies “received multiple tips from multiple sources in the days and weeks leading up to the attacks. An attack that should have raised the alarm.”

“On the contrary, these companies have not absolutely and accurately assessed the seriousness of the risk,” it said. “At a basic level, the agencies failed.”

The Senate Homeland Security Committee reports on specific tips the FBI obtained before the uprising, as well as a December 2020 tip that members of the far-right Proud Boys planned to come to Washington and their “plan is to literally kill people.”

The report revealed that in January, the FBI was made aware of several messages calling for gun violence, the equivalent of one Parler consumer admitting, “(b) calls for food and weapons. If they don’t listen to our words, they can sense our leadership. come armed’; plans to “set up an armed camp” in the (National) Mall”; and a tip about a “TikTok video of someone holding a gun and saying” stormed the Capitol on January 6.

But officers did not immediately react to what they saw, saying they were “biased to rule out the possibility of such an unprecedented event”.

In addition, the officers did not raise the alarm “partly because they could not have suspected that the US Capitol would be overrun by insurgents.”

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the committee that commissioned the report, said the results were overwhelming.

“What was shocking was that this attack was basically planned on social media,” Peters shared NBC News. “And yet our intelligence services seemed to completely drop the ball.”

The report includes data from the now-defunct House Jan. 6 Committee, a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, and several other separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and various government agencies about what happened, such as the attack on the Capitol. . which resulted in 5 deaths.

While the report focuses on the intelligence aspect, it doesn’t absolve Donald Trump of his concerns on the day. It cited Trump’s tweets denying the election results and his word for the Jan. 6 protest, which will be “wild,” as “directly contributing to this attack.”

But the fact remains that the federal agencies charged with stopping domestic terrorism and disseminating intelligence, particularly the FBI and I&A, did not raise the alarm and prevent much of the violence that took place on January 6th if it had. ‘ concludes the message.

Trump held a morning rally in Congress on the National Ellipse at the entrance to the White House to confirm the results of the Electoral College.

In his remarks, he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and called for them to march on Capitol Hill in protest of an election he falsely claimed was “rigged” and stolen from him.

The report revealed that as crowds of people gathered on the National Mall on the morning of January 6, 2021, intelligence analysts were particularly concerned that violence between the pro-Trump crowd and counter-protesters might break out, not {š}. Capitol would happen. .

“Threats against the Capitol on Jan. 6 were not merely private conversations that required covert investigative tactics by law enforcement,” the report said. “Instead, these threats were made openly, often in publicly available social media posts, and were known to the FBI and I&A.”

In response to the report, the FBI said it had been working with law enforcement firms as well as the Capitol Police, primarily on Jan. 6. that in the wake of the attack it increased its deal with “rapid information sharing” with enforcement partners and that it additionally “made improvements to assist investigators and analysts across our offices during the investigation process.”

And a DHS spokesman said the company has conducted a “comprehensive organizational review” of its intelligence agency, which is able to “quickly develop recommendations on how (the bureau) can move higher to address threats to homeland security today and tomorrow.”

Overall, the report found a lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays or a basic disquiet about what intelligence officers saw online that enforcement officers were not adequately prepared for the day.

As a result, the entire Capitol lacked a tight security perimeter that day, as it does in all situations, such as the annual State of the Union address and presidential inaugurations.

The report found that, for example, the FBI was hampered in trying to search social media posts related to the Jan. 6 protests when the contract for his or her outside social media monitoring tool expired.

It also revealed that the I&A, the US intelligence arm, was hesitant to warn of trouble surrounding Jan. 6, in part because it faced criticism for its handling of protests after the police killing of George Floyd. earlier in the summer season.

The report includes an extended checklist of recommendations to avoid the same situation. It calls for full post-action assessments by the FBI and DHS. And it says Congressional certification of future presidential elections should be declared special cases for nationwide security that could provide specific security enhancements.