Threat Warnings
One other argument made by House Republicans to assign culpability for the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol to Pelosi is the claim that she ignored intelligence warnings in December.
McCarthy: “On Jan. 6, these brave officers were put into a vulnerable and impossible position because the leadership at the top has failed. Dec. 14, the leadership knew there was a problem.”
Stefanik then made clear to whom Republicans were referring when they said “leadership.”
“It is a fact that in December of 2020, Nancy Pelosi was made aware of potential security threats to the Capitol, and she failed to act,” Stefanik said. “It is a fact that the U.S. Capitol Police raised concerns and, rather than providing them with the support and resources they needed and they deserved, she prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety.
“The American people deserve to know the truth that Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility as speaker of the House for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6, and it was only after Republicans started asking these important questions that she refused to seat them,” Stefanik said.
As the Senate investigative report indicated, “Internal records and USCP officials’ testimony confirm that USCP began gathering information about events planned for January 6 in mid-December 2020. Through open source collection, tips from the public, and other sources, USCP IICD [Capitol Police’s lead intelligence component—the Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division] knew about social media posts calling for violence at the Capitol on January 6, including a plot to breach the Capitol, the online sharing of maps of the Capitol Complex’s tunnel systems, and other specific threats of violence.”
But there was no indication that that intelligence was shared with Pelosi. In fact, the report states, “IICD did not convey the full scope of known information to USCP leadership, rank-and-file officers, or law enforcement partners.”
Pelosi’s spokesman, Hammill, told us, “There was no such briefing in which the Speaker participated.”
The Senate report also says the IICD’s intelligence reports prior to Jan. 6 were “inconsistent” and “contradictory.”
“For example,” the report states, “although a January 3 Special Event Assessment warned of the Capitol being a target of armed violence on January 6, IICD’s daily intelligence reports rated the likelihood of civil disturbance on January 6 as ‘remote’ to ‘improbable.'”
In testimony before the Senate on Feb. 23, Irving said that based on intelligence they received, they expected something similar to previous MAGA rallies.
“Every Capitol Police daily intelligence report between Jan. 4 and Jan. 6, including on Jan. 6, forecast the chance of civil disobedience or arrests during the protests as remote to improbable,” Irving said. “Based on the intelligence, we all believed that the plan met the threat and that we were prepared. We now know that we had the wrong plan.”
In his testimony, Sund said, “We properly planned for a mass demonstration with possible violence. What we got was a military-style, coordinated assault on my officers and a violent takeover of the Capitol building.”
The bipartisan Senate committee found plenty of blame to go around: everything from intelligence, communication and planning failures to lapses in law enforcement leadership and inadequate equipment. Nowhere in the report does it suggest Pelosi bore any culpability for the failures that day.
As we have said, Pelosi has indirect authority over the Capitol Police Board that oversees security of the Capitol. She appoints one of three members, the House sergeant at arms, a man who was initially appointed by a Republican and who was unanimously approved by the House for nearly a decade. And holding Pelosi to that standard of accountability, McConnell would then be as culpable as Pelosi, but Republicans have made no mention of that.
Also, Republican leaders have offered only speculation in claiming that the National Guard was not deployed earlier because Pelosi expressed concerns to Irving about “optics” in light of Black Lives Matter protests last summer. Pelosi’s spokesman denies it, and Irving contradicted it in his Senate testimony.
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