Washington:
The deadly US Capitol riot on January 6 exposed devastating safety and intelligence weaknesses, with military authorities reacting as well gradually to calls for National Guard backup against an overwhelming mob, safety officials told Congress Tuesday.
Among the most really serious lapses revealed: the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent US Capitol Police a report on the eve of the unrest warning that extremists groups had been coming to Washington “ready for war,” but the document did not attain USCP leadership.
And lawmakers also heard that military officials had been “reluctant” to send troops to defend Congress, even when it was clear circumstances at the Capitol had deteriorated.
In the initial congressional hearing on the attack, police chiefs and the House and Senate sergeants at arms acknowledged they had been blindsided by lack of intelligence and response coordination to the worst domestic insurrection because the Civil War.
In compelling testimony they painted a image of officers badly outnumbered by armed and coordinated insurgents.
They pointed to a series of intelligence shortcomings about the threat level, such as assessments of “remote” and “improbable” probabilities of big violence on January 6, even although extremist groups like the Proud Boys produced clear they had been coming to Washington that day to stir up problems.
“No entity, including the FBI, provided any intelligence indicating that there would be a coordinated violent attack on the United States Capitol by thousands of well-equipped armed insurrectionists,” a circumstance that left his officers woefully unprepared against a violent mob, mentioned the US Capitol Police’s then-chief Steven Sund.
Later in the 4-hour joint hearing ahead of the Senate homeland safety and guidelines committees, nevertheless, Sund mentioned the USCP “did get” the FBI report warning of violence, but “no leadership, myself included, over at Capitol Police was made aware of that at the time of the event.”
“That’s very concerning,” Senator Jeff Merkley told Sund for the duration of questioning.
Sund resigned his post days following the riot, which left 5 dead such as one police officer and 4 other individuals. Two other police officers died by suicide shortly afterwards.
House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving and Senate sergeant-at-arms Michael Stenger also resigned.
Irving testified that “the intelligence was not that there would be a coordinated assault on the Capitol, nor was that contemplated in any of the inter-agency discussions that I attended in the days before the attack.”
Worst of the worst’
The unprecedented breach of the citadel of American democracy occurred on January 6 following then-president Donald Trump whipped up a crowd of his supporters, urging them to march on Congress and “fight like hell.”
The riot, fuelled by Trump’s repeated false claims that the election was rigged, appeared aimed at blocking the certification of Joe Biden as winner of the November 3 vote.
Washington’s acting police chief Robert Contee mentioned his officers had been actually “fighting for their lives” on Capitol Hill.
But he was “stunned at the response” by the Department of the Army, which he mentioned was “reluctant” to send National Guard troops to guard the Capitol.
Officials participating in the hearing agreed that a thorough critique of intelligence sharing operations and internal processes is required to ascertain reforms to be produced in order to avoid any new attacks.
And Senate Rules Committee chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, noting the “intelligence breakdown” concerning the FBI report, announced that a new hearing would be convened next week with testimony from officials at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.
Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman Gary Peters described January 6 as “one of our nation’s darkest days,” and mentioned the safety complications at the Capitol marked “a systemic and leadership failure” that have to be addressed.
Lawmakers heard a gripping account of the unrest by Capitol Police Captain Carneysha Mendoza, such as how she helped hold a group of rioters at bay as they forced their way into the creating.
“This was by far the worst of the worst,” Mendoza mentioned, noting how rioters deployed “military grade” tear gas in the Rotunda as they fought with police.
“We could have had 10 times the amount of people working with us, and I still believe the battle would have been just as devastating,” she mentioned.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)