Sweeping Failures Around Jan. 6 Attack Detailed In Senate Report

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Capitol Police leadership failed to provide a basic plan for mobilizing its officers on Jan. 6, the day of a joint session of Congress to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday.

The report concluded that the Capitol Police’s main intelligence unit, the Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division, was “aware of the potential for violence in the days and weeks ahead of January 6.”

The report was the result of a monthslong investigation by the Senate Rules and Administration and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees. It also found that the Capitol Police failed to provide the training and equipment needed to adequately protect the police officers trying to protect the Capitol.

The report laid out the extent of the confusion, miscommunication and lack of planning that led to delays in the deployment of the U.S. National Guard to support the Capitol Police and officers with the Metropolitan Police Department.

Despite online calls for violence at the Capitol, neither the FBI nor Department of Homeland Security issued a threat assessment or intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement entities in Washington, D.C., of the potential for violence, the report said.

The report, "Examining the U.S. Capitol Attack: A Review of the Security, Planning and Response Failures on January 6," said the operational failures by the Capitol Police were exacerbated by the department’s failure to clearly communicate during the attack.

Capitol Police leadership gathered in a command center, blocks away from the Capitol building. Two incident commanders identified as responsible for relaying information to front-line officers were forced to engage with rioters during the attack, making it difficult for them to relay information. As a result, communications were chaotic, sporadic and, according to many front-line officers, nonexistent, the report said.

“This bipartisan report is extremely troubling and underscores that Capitol security leaders were woefully underprepared to handle the events that ultimately unfolded on January 6,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Rules Committee, said in a statement.

“What’s even more alarming is the intelligence failures leading up to the attack on our Capitol — including the inadequate sharing of available threat information between U.S. Capitol Police and federal intelligence agencies,” Warner said.

ALSO SEE: Navy Veteran, Cops Among VA Residents Charged In Capitol Riots

In statement issued Tuesday in response to the report, the Capitol Police said it enhanced its "security posture" and tried to get support from the National Guard in response to the pro-Trump rally planned for D.C. on Jan. 6.

"What the intelligence didn’t reveal, as Acting Chief Pittman has noted, was the large-scale demonstration would become a large-scale attack on the Capitol Building as there was no specific, credible intelligence about such an attack," the Capitol Police said. "The USCP consumes intelligence from every federal agency. At no point prior to the 6th did it receive actionable intelligence about a large-scale attack."

But the intelligence reviewed by local leaders led them to issue ominous warnings in the week prior to the Jan. 6 attack. Local leaders in the D.C. area warned residents against traveling to D.C. in response to an anticipation of violence by supporters of Trump.

The report comes on the heels of the Senate failing to reach a 60-vote threshold needed to establish a bipartisan commission to examine the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The report calls for a series of reforms in the wake of the attack, including granting the Capitol Police chief the power to more easily request National Guard assistance, requiring the agency to pull together operational plans for special events, and consolidating intelligence officers into one bureau.

The report also recommended that the Capitol Police have sufficient civilian and sworn personnel, with appropriate training and equipment, in the roles necessary to fulfill its mission. This includes providing all officers annual training on basic civil disturbance tactics and equipping them with ballistic helmets, gloves and gas masks, the same equipment that the Metropolitan Police Department provides to its officers, the report said.

According to the report, the slowness of the Department of Defense to allow the D.C. National Guard to provide support to the Capitol Police during the insurrection "was informed by criticism it received about its response to the civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd during the summer of 2020."

"DOD officials cited lessons learned from the summer 2020 as guiding its decision-making for January 6," the report said.

Defense Department officials believed they needed “control measures” and “rigor” before deploying the D.C. National Guard, including "a clear deployment plan to avoid the appearance of overmilitarization," according to the report.

Warner said it is "unsettling" that the nation's intelligence-gathering agencies lacked the ability to recognize "the profound threat posed by domestic violent extremist groups."

The Virginia senator said he hopes his colleagues in Congress "will take this issue seriously or we will not be able to effectively track and grapple with this ongoing national security threat.”

RELATED: Threats Against Congress Up 107 Percent Over 2020: Capitol Police