[Senate Hearing 117-617]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-617
EXAMINING THE JANUARY 6 ATTACK ON THE
U.S. CAPITOL
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JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
AND THE
COMMITTEE ON RULES AND
ADMINISTRATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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FEBRUARY 23, 2021 AND MARCH 3, 2021
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-585 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
Christopher J. Mulkins, Director of Homeland Security
Roy S. Awabdeh, Counsel
Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
Andrew C. Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
Erin E. Kuhls, Minority Counsel
William H.W. McKenna, Minority Chief Investigator
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk
COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota, Chairwoman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ROY BLUNT, Missouri
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont TED CRUZ, Texas
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon Virginia
ALEX PADILLA, California ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
JON OSSOFF, Georgia DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
Elizabeth Peluso, Staff Director
Fitzhugh Elder IV, Republican Staff Director
Cindy Qualley, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Peters
Senator Klobuchar
Senator Blunt
Senator Portman
Senator Leahy................................................ 32
Senator Johnson
Senator Rosen
Senator Warner
Senator Lankford
Senator Carper
Senator Merkley
Senator Scott................................................ 49
Senator Hassan
Senator Hawley
Senator Padilla
Senator Hagerty.............................................. 59
Senator King
Senator Sinema
Senator Cruz
Senator Ossoff
Senator Feinstein............................................ 222
Senator Paul................................................. 249
Prepared statements:
Senator Peters
Senator Klobuchar
Senator Portman
Senator Blunt
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
WITNESSES
Captain Carneysha Mendoza, Field Commander, U.S. Capitol Police
Special Operations Division.................................... 8
Robert J. Contee III, Acting Chief of Police, Metropolitan Police
Department, Washington DC...................................... 12
Steven A. Sund, Former Chief of Police, U.S. Capitol Police...... 14
Michael C. Stenger, Former Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper, U.S.
Senate......................................................... 16
Paul D. Irving, Former Sergeant at Arms, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 17
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Contee III, Robert J.:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 90
Irving, Paul D.:
Testimony.................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 108
Mendoza, Captain Carneysha:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 87
Stenger, Michael C.:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 106
Sund, Steven A.:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 95
APPENDIX
Johnson Federalist Article....................................... 112
Sund Supplemental testimony with attachments..................... 126
Statement submitted by U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee....... 140
Response to post-hearing questions submitted for the Record
Mr. Contee................................................... 145
Mr. Sund..................................................... 151
Mr. Stenger.................................................. 176
Mr. Irving................................................... 182
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
WITNESSES
Robert G. Salesses, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the
Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security,
U.S. Department of Defense..................................... 199
Melissa Smislova, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the
Under Secretary, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 201
Jill Sanborn, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice.... 202
Major General William J. Walker, USA, Commanding General,
District of Columbia National Guard............................ 204
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Salesses, Robert G.:
Testimony.................................................... 199
Prepared statement........................................... 273
Sanborn, Jill:
Testimony.................................................... 202
Prepared statement........................................... 287
Smislova, Melissa:
Testimony.................................................... 201
Prepared statement........................................... 282
Walker, William J.:
Testimony.................................................... 204
Prepared statement........................................... 292
APPENDIX
Peters Secretary Defense Memo.................................... 296
Peters Secretary Army Article.................................... 297
Johnson NY Times Article......................................... 300
Cruz Bowser Tweet................................................ 306
Cruz Bowser Letter............................................... 307
Response to post-hearing questions submitted for the Record
Mr. Salesses................................................. 308
Ms. Smislova................................................. 312
Ms. Sanborn.................................................. 327
Mr. Walker................................................... 342
EXAMINING THE JANUARY 6 ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL
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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
and the Committee on Rules and Administration,
Washington, DC.
The Committees met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gary C. Peters,
Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee (HSGAC), and Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman of the
Committee on Rules and Administration, presiding.
Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen,
Padilla, Ossoff, Klobuchar, Feinstein, Warner, Leahy, King,
Merkley, Portman, Johnson, Lankford, Romney, Scott, Hawley,
Blunt, Cruz, Capito, Wicker, Fischer, Hyde-Smith, and Hagerty.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\
Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix
on page 73.
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I would like to thank Ranking Member Portman, Chairwoman
Klobuchar, Ranking Member Blunt, and all of our colleagues from
the Rules Committee for your leadership and your help in
putting together this joint meeting and hearing today.
I would also like to thank our witnesses for joining us
today and for your service to our country. For many Americans,
this will be the first opportunity to hear about what happened
in the Capitol on January 6th directly from our witnesses. We
appreciate your willingness to work with our Committees to
examine the breakdowns that allowed this terrible attack to
occur and to ensure that an attack like this can never, ever
happen again.
This hearing is unique because it is personal for everyone
involved, and I am grateful to our witnesses, colleagues,
staff, U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), the D.C. Metropolitan Police
Department (MPD), and the National Guard units who continue to
assist in protecting the Capitol today, and for all of the hard
work that allows this very important discussion to begin.
I would like to once again thank Chairwoman Klobuchar for
your partnership and for your leadership, and I look forward to
your opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN KLOBUCHAR\1\
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Chairman Peters,
and good morning. Thank you to our witnesses for being here
today for this first joint hearing of the Rules Committee and
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as we
work to conduct oversight into what happened in the lead-up and
during the horrific events of January 6th.
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\2\ The prepared statement of Senator Klobuchar appears in the
Appendix on page 76.
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Thank you to Chairman Peters and also Ranking Member
Portman, as well as my good friend, Senator Blunt, who I look
forward to continue working with on the Rules Committee in this
Congress.
I think it is important to note that we planned this entire
hearing on a bipartisan basis. That is because the stakes are
so high, and I say this to our witnesses as well who are all
appearing here voluntarily. I think it is important for the
Members to know that, and we thank them for doing that. We want
this to be as constructive as possible, because in order to
figure out the solutions so this does not happen again, we must
have the facts. The answers are in this room.
When an angry, violent mob staged an insurrection on
January 6th and desecrated our Capitol, the temple of our
democracy, it was not just an attack on the building. It was an
attack on our republic itself. We are here today to better
understand what was known in advance, what steps were taken to
secure the Capitol, and what occurred that day, because we want
to ensure that nothing like this happens again.
Each of our witnesses held a leadership role at the time of
the attack: Acting Chief Robert Contee of the Metropolitan
Police Department of the District of Columbia; Mr. Steven Sund,
former Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, who is here with us in
person today; Mr. Michael Stenger, former Senate Sergeant at
Arms (SSA); and Mr. Paul Irving, former House Sergeant at Arms.
The other witnesses are here, as many of our witnesses do, via
video. To our witnesses, your testimony is vital, and thank you
again for coming.
At the same time, this is certainly not the last hearing
that we will have regarding this attack. Next week we will hear
from witnesses from Federal agencies, including the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), and the Department of Defense (DOD), that are
critical to our understanding.
The insurrection at the Capitol was more than an assault on
democracy. It was an actual life or death situation for the
many brave law enforcement officers who show up here to do
their work every day. At the beginning of this testimony, we
will hear from one of them.
We will never forget the haunting shrieks of the police
officer pinned in between the doors at the hands of the
rioters, pleading for help. We will never forget Officer Harry
Dunn who fought against the violent mob for hours and, after it
was over, broke down in tears, telling fellow officers he had
been called the ``N'' word 15 times that day. He asked, ``Is
this America?''
Or Officer Eugene Goodman, who, after saving Senator Romney
from walking--who is here with us today; thank you, Senator
Romney--directly into the mob, ran by himself to take on a
group of rioters, and then Eugene Goodman diverted that mob
away from the Senate chamber, allowing us to safely depart.
Tragically, the attack on the Capitol also cost the lives
of three brave officers, including of course, Brian Sicknick,
who died from injuries sustained while engaging with
protesters. Two other officers died by suicide following the
event of January 6th: D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey
Smith and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood.
Officer Liebengood, or ``Howie'' to those who knew him, worked
the Delaware Avenue door of the Russell Senate Office Building,
someone who I have seen at that doorway and who always greeted
me and everyone with a warm smile.
It has been reported that 140 U.S. Capitol Police officers
sustained injuries from defending the Capitol. The courage of
these officers will be remembered forever, but there are still
many voices that we have not heard in the stories of January
6th, including the many staff who make sure we have food in our
cafeteria and water and heat in our building.
One janitorial worker hid during the attack in a closet.
Another custodial staff member reflected on how terrible he
felt when he had to clean up feces and had been speared on the
wall, saying, ``I felt bad. I felt degraded.''
These dedicated workers were here, too, when the Capitol
was attacked, as were many committed journalists who report on
our work to the American people.
To make this place safe going forward, we must answer some
key questions. First and foremost on many of our minds is what
took so long to deploy the National Guard that day, both
because of decisions made in the Capitol Complex but also by
others in the Federal Government.
We must find out what was known about the potential for
violence before the attack and how that intelligence was shared
with law enforcement partners, including the officials
responsible for protecting the Capitol. There are also
important questions to be asked about how information
concerning those threats was communicated to rank-and-file
officers. It is vital that we explore necessary reforms to the
structure of the Capitol Police Board, which I know we will
hear more about today.
We owe it to the 140 Capitol Police officers injured and to
all those at the Capitol who continue to suffer the
repercussions. We owe it to the officer beaten by the violent
rioters because he literally placed his body in the doorway to
protect us. We owe it to the officers who lost their lives. We
owe it to the American people to figure out how the United
States Capitol, the preeminent symbol of democracy around the
world, could be overtaken by an angry, violent mob. We owe it
to ourselves, colleagues, to believe enough in our democracy
and in the U.S. Senate that, despite our political differences,
we will be constructive in this hearing today, not just here to
make political hay but be constructive today, to figure out
what went wrong and what changes we can make to ensure that the
Capitol is safe for us and the public going forward.
Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Blunt, Ranking Member
Portman, and colleagues, for me the bottom line is that we must
get the answers, and those answers are what will give us the
solutions.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
It has been just over six weeks since our Nation watched
with horror as our Capitol Building was breached by domestic
terrorists who sought to use violence and intimidation to
overturn the results of a free and fair election. This was a
shocking assault on our democracy, and it marked one of our
Nation's darkest days.
The United States has stood as a beacon for the world,
showing how democracy can thrive. On January 6th, we saw how
fragile many of our most valued democratic principles,
including the peaceful transfer of power is.
It is hard to express how deeply grateful we are for the
actions our Capitol Police, our Sergeants at Arms, and other
law enforcement agencies do to keep us safe every single day,
and especially on that day. Too many of our officers were
gravely injured or tragically killed as they bravely fought
back the attackers.
Chief Contee, we are also indebted to the D.C. Metropolitan
Police Department for their valiant efforts to thwart the
attack. D.C. Police often provide support or help secure the
Capitol, but the officers under your command did not hesitate
to come to our aid.
We are thankful for the heroic actions of so many who
ensured this direct attack on our democracy failed. But there
is no question that there were colossal breakdowns in the
intelligence gathering and security preparations leading up to
the events of January 6th, as well as during the coordination
and response efforts once the attack got underway.
Our goal today is to begin to understand where those
breakdowns and failures occurred and to determine if there are
policy and structural changes Congress must make to prevent a
future attack of this nature.
In my role on the Homeland Security Committee, I have
worked to draw attention to the rising threat of domestic
terrorism, including the rise of insidious ideologies of white
supremacy, antigovernment militias, and now QAnon conspiracies.
These ideologies are intertwined in numerous ways, and on
January 6th we saw just how quickly they can shift from online
communities to committing organized, violent attacks in the
real world.
But the warning signs were there. Just a few months
earlier, in my home State of Michigan, law enforcement
successfully stopped a plot by antigovernment militias to
kidnap our State's Governor. We have seen an increase in
violent crimes over the last decade that are driven by hateful
ideologies. We saw the deadly and tragic consequences on
January 6th when the domestic terrorist threat was not taken as
seriously as it should have been.
This is a systemic and leadership failure on the part of
our security officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland
Security to the security leadership on the ground in the
Capitol, and it must be addressed.
Domestic terrorism is not a new threat, but it is an urgent
threat. It will require serious focus to ensure that we are
doing everything we can to protect the safety and security of
all Americans, and I would like to take a moment to remind my
colleagues that every Senator here today took an oath to
protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both
foreign and domestic.
As the Committees charged with oversight, strengthening
homeland security, and maintaining Capitol operations, we have
a solemn duty to thoroughly examine the security breakdowns and
make needed reforms. I am hopeful we will be able to work
together and carry out this responsibility in a serious and a
nonpartisan way.
Finally, while today's hearing is our first on the January
6th attack, it will not be our last. We will continue to seek
testimony and information from a range of agencies and
officials who were involved in preparing for and responding to
the events of the day for the U.S. Capitol and for the entire
region.
The attack on January 6th was an extraordinary event that
requires exhaustive consideration. The American people deserve
answers on why their Capitol was breached, and I look forward
to having a productive discussion with our witnesses in order
to provide the American people with those answers.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. Senator Blunt.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BLUNT\1\
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairwoman Klobuchar. It is great
to work with you, Chairman Peters, and Senator Portman as we
move forward on this hearing on what happened on January 6th,
and I think that will obviously also require discussion of what
happened in the days immediately leading up to January 6th.
This hearing, as Senator Peters and you have both said, is
really the beginning of a series of efforts that hopefully we
can approach in a bipartisan way that looks for solutions and
ensures that the deadly, outrageous, destructive attack that
marked such a sad day in our history never happens again.
Certainly the officers who defended the Capitol that day
deserve to be recognized and praised for their valiant efforts
and their willingness every day to stand ready to do what needs
to be done to defend the Capitol and those who work there. I am
certainly grateful to them. I am particularly grateful in this
instance to the Metropolitan Police Department and their really
admirable response to be here quickly, to be here with
significant numbers of people in the very short term, and
within an hour to have an incredible impact on what was going
on here at the Capitol in a positive way.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Blunt appears in the Appendix
on page 84.
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The failures of the day, unfortunately, were of the most
serious kind. Senator Klobuchar has already mentioned the three
officers whose lives were lost and other officers who have
really had to deal with this in a significant way. You also
have to remember that this was an event where the families of
our officers were watching in real time on television an attack
where they are seeing people that mean the entire world to them
in this fight for their lives and fight for our lives and the
Capitol.
Three of today's witnesses, former House Sergeant at Arms
Irving, former Senate Sergeant at Arms Stenger, and former
Chief of the United States Capitol Police Sund, were all
charged with the protection of the Capitol on January 6th. We
need to hear from them, whether it was a failure of
imagination, of what could go wrong, a failure of intelligence
gathering and dissemination, a failure of preparation, which
ultimately led to this problem, or maybe a structural failure
that just is not designed in a way that it allows us to respond
to an immediate crisis, and obviously we need to get that done.
I want to hear from Chief Contee of the Metropolitan Police
Department to learn about the department's role and, frankly,
to learn how their decisionmaking process appeared to be so
much quicker than the decisionmaking process we could go
through here.
I believe it is important for everyone to note that the
attacks on January 6th did not prevent Congress from fulfilling
its responsibilities. Both chambers reconvened that evening and
finished the certification of the results of the Electoral
College. I think Senator Klobuchar and the Vice President and I
left the building about 4 a.m. on Friday, but we did get our
work done where the American people and people all over the
world would have expected it to get done.
On the 20th, we held an Inauguration on the same platform
that had been stormed two weeks earlier and carried out one of
our most important aspects of our democracy, the peaceful
transfer of power.
I want to thank my colleagues from both the Homeland
Security and Rules Committee for today's hearing and the staff
work that has gone into getting ready for today.
Chairman Peters. Ranking Member Portman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\
Senator Portman. Thank you, Chairman Peters, Chairwoman
Klobuchar, Ranking Member Blunt, for the constructive comments
this morning.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the
Appendix on page 81.
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In this business you often finish like you start, and I
appreciate the fact that we are starting this review by taking
the politics out of it so we can get to the bottom of what
happened.
I want to start by expressing my gratitude on behalf of
everybody for the men and women of law enforcement--U.S.
Capitol Police, U.S. Secret Service (USSS), National Guard,
Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI, and all the law
enforcement agencies who put their safety on the line to
safeguard democracy on January 6th.
As I said on the Senate floor that night, it was thanks to
them that Vice President Pence, Members of Congress, staff, and
the Capitol Complex workforce were protected, and we were able
to complete our constitutional duty of certifying the election.
It was important, in my view, that we sent a clear message
that night to our constituents and to the world that we would
not be intimidated, that the mob would not rule here. But that
message could not have been delivered without law enforcement
securing us and our respective chambers.
Seven individuals lost their lives as a result of the
Capitol attack, including two Capitol Police officers and a
D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer. We will never
forget the service and sacrifice of Officers Brian Sicknick,
Jeffrey Smith, and Howard Liebengood. I knew Officer
Liebengood. I saw Howie most days at his post at the Russell
Office Building. His colleagues will tell you no officer was
more dedicated to the mission of the Capitol Hill Police
Department, a mission and duty to serve and protect. I am proud
to have called him a friend.
We will never forget Officer Eugene Goodman and the
hundreds of other officers who were heroes on the front lines
that afternoon, that evening, many of whom sustained injuries.
To honor that kind of sacrifice and avoid future attacks, we
have to take a really hard look at what happened on January
6th, the decisionmaking that led up to that day and the
decisionmaking that allowed the Capitol to be breached and
overrun.
As the bipartisan media advisory announcing this joint
hearing stated, the purpose today is to examine the security
failures that led to a breach of the Capitol on January 6th,
specifically the preparation and response efforts. There are
key questions that have to be answered.
First, some witnesses have suggested there was an
intelligence failure. We need to know: Was there credible
intelligence about potential violence? When was it known? And
who knew it?
Second, our witnesses have differing accounts about
requests for National Guard assistance. We need to now: Did the
U.S. Capitol Police request approval to seek National Guard
assistance prior to January 6th? If so, why was that request
denied? We need to know: Was the request for National Guard
assistance on January 6th delayed, and why, if that is true? We
need to know why it took so long for the National Guard to
arrive after their support was requested.
Third, the Capitol was overtaken in a matter of hours. We
need to know whether Capitol Police officers were properly
trained and equipped to respond to an attack on the Capitol? If
not, why not? We need to know why the Capitol Complex itself
was so vulnerable and insecure that it could be so easily
overrun.
My hope is that today we get clear answers to these
questions from our witnesses. We need to know what happened and
how to ensure this never happens again. It is that simple. I
will be listening carefully, as I know my colleagues will, to
the testimony of the witnesses before us. These events on
January 6th showed that while our democracy is resilient, our
democracy at times will be challenged. We have to be up to that
challenge. That certainly includes securing this Capitol, the
citadel of democracy. That is something we can all agree on.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Portman.
Before I introduce the panel, it is important that we hear
from someone who was on the front lines that day, and I would
like to recognize Captain Carneysha Mendoza of the U.S. Capitol
Police. Captain Mendoza has been a member of the Capitol Police
for almost 19 years, with 13 years of leadership experience.
She currently serves as the field commander in the Special
Operations Division where her duties include acting as a Field
Commander for significant security incidents. She has served in
various divisions within the department, including the Command
Center, House Division, and Senate Division.
Before she joined the Capitol Police, she served as an
active-duty soldier in the United States Army, and she has
received various awards for her work, including her work on
recovery efforts during the Pentagon attack on September 11,
2001.
Born and raised in Missouri, Senator Blunt, Captain Mendoza
graduated from Park University with a Bachelor of Science (BS)
in Criminal Justice Administration. She has two children.
On January 6th, she rushed to the Capitol when she heard
that her fellow officers needed immediate help and assumed
command in the rotunda as she and her colleagues fought to push
back the rioters and ultimately drive them out of the building.
Captain, thank you for sharing your story today.
TESTIMONY OF CAPTAIN CARNEYSHA MENDOZA,\1\ FIELD COMMANDER,
U.S. CAPITOL POLICE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION
Ms. Mendoza. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak before the Committee today and thank you
all for your service to our country.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Mendoza appears in the Appendix
on page 87.
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My name is Captain Carneysha Mendoza, and I have served
with the United States Capitol Police for 19 years. I take a
lot of pride in my job. Prior to serving with the Capitol
Police, I served as an active-duty soldier with the United
States Army. My last duty station was split between the
Pentagon and the Washington Area Criminal Investigations
Division (CID). I have received various awards from the Army
and the Capitol Police, to include an award for recovery
``efforts'' during the Pentagon attack. Unfortunately, I did
not save any lives, but there are certain lessons that always
stuck with me after September 11, 2001. One of those lessons is
knowing the unthinkable is always possible, so be ready. I
always take my job very seriously, as September 11 is always in
the back of my mind.
With the Capitol Police, I have served in various
operational, administrative, and collateral assignments. I am
currently serving as a captain in the Special Operations
Division where I have various responsibilities to include
serving as a field commander and a field force commander for
the Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU).
Throughout my career, I have responded to and managed
various critical incidents and events from congressional and
member security-related issues to shootings and armed
carjackings. I have served as the CDU field force commander for
multiple events, including the November 14th Million Make
America Great Again (MAGA) March.
In my career, I have been activated to work demonstrations
with various controversial groups, and I have been called some
of the worst names so many times that I am pretty numb to it
now.
As an agency, we have trained for and handled numerous
demonstrations. It is something we do on a regular basis, and
it is something I have always felt we have excelled at.
During the Million MAGA March, multiple white supremacist
groups, to include the Proud Boys and others, converged at the
Supreme Court along with counter groups. The Civil Disturbance
Unit fought hard that day, physically breaking up fights and
separating various groups. I literally woke up the next day
unable to move due to the pain.
On January 6th, we anticipated an event similar to the
Million MAGA March that took place on November 14, where we
would likely face groups fighting among one another. Additional
Civil Disturbance Units were activated that day. I was working
the evening shift and had planned to report in at 3 p.m. I was
prepared to work a 16-hour shift and assume field force
commander should the event continue into the evening and
overnight shifts.
It was approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. I was home
eating with my 10-year-old, spending time with him before what
I knew would be a long day, when a fellow captain contacted me
and told me things were bad and that I needed to respond in. I
literally dropped everything to respond in to work early.
I arrived within 15 minutes, and I contacted dispatch to
ask what active scenes we had. I was advised things were
``pretty bad.'' I asked where assistance was needed and was
advised of six active scenes.
There was an explosive device at the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) building, a second explosive device at the
Republican National Committee (RNC) building, and large hostile
groups at different locations outside the Capitol Building. I
advised the dispatcher I would respond to the DNC since that
building was closest to where I was at the time.
En route, I heard officers at the Capitol Building calling
for immediate assistance, so I proceeded past the DNC to the
Capitol.
As I arrived to the East Front Plaza of the Capitol, I
heard an officer yell there was a breach at the rotunda door,
and I heard various other officers calling for assistance in
multiple locations throughout the building.
Many of the doors to the building were not accessible due
to the size of the crowd. I was able to enter a lower-level
door with the assistance of a Capitol Division officer.
Once inside the Memorial Door, I immediately noticed a
large crowd of possibly 200 rioters yelling in front of me.
Since I was alone, I turned to go back out so I could enter
another door, but within the few seconds it took me to walk
back to the door I entered, there were already countless
rioters outside the building banging on the door. I had no
choice but to proceed through the violent crowd in the
building.
I made my way through the crowd by yelling and pushing
people out of my way until I saw Capitol Police Civil
Disturbance Units in riot gear in the hallway. They were
holding the hallway to keep rioters from penetrating deeper
into the building. I immediately jumped in line with them to
assist with holding the crowd of rioters.
At some point, my right arm got wedged between rioters and
the railing along the wall. A CDU sergeant pulled my arm free,
and had he not, I am certain it would have been broken.
Shortly after that, an officer was pushed and fell to the
floor. I assisted the officer to a safer location and got back
in line. At some point, the crowd breached the line officers
worked so hard to maintain. Civil Disturbance Units began to
redeploy to keep rioters from accessing other areas of the
building.
I proceeded to the rotunda where I noticed a heavy smoke-
like residue and smelled what I believed to be military-grade
chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile (CS) gas--a familiar smell. It
was mixed with fire extinguisher spray deployed by rioters. The
rioters continued to deploy CS inside the rotunda.
Officers received a lot of gas exposure, which is worse
inside the building than outside because there is nowhere for
it to go. I received chemical burns to my face that still have
not healed to this day.
I witnessed officers being knocked to the ground and hit
with various objects that were thrown by rioters. I was unable
to determine exactly what those objects were.
I immediately assumed command in the rotunda and called for
additional assets. Officers began to push the crowd out the
door. After a couple of hours, officers cleared the rotunda,
but had to physically hold the door closed because it had been
broken by the rioters. Officers begged me for relief as they
were unsure of how long they could physically hold the door
closed with the crowd continually banging on the outside of the
door attempting to gain reentry. Eventually, officers were able
to secure the door with furniture and other objects.
I am proud of the officers I worked with on January 6th.
They fought extremely hard. I know some said the battle lasted
three hours, but according to my Fitbit, I was in the exercise
zone for four hours and nine minutes, and many officers were in
the fight even before I arrived.
I am extremely proud of the United States Capitol Police. I
am especially proud of the officers who are the backbone of
this agency and carry out day-to-day operations. I know with
teamwork we can move forward.
The night of January 7th into the very early morning hours
of my birthday, January 8th, I spent at the hospital comforting
the family of our fallen officer and met with the medical
examiner's office prior to working with fellow officers to
facilitate a motorcade to transport Officer Sicknick from the
hospital.
Of the multitude of events I have worked in my nearly 19-
year career in the department, this was by far the worst of the
worst. 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.
As an American and as an Army veteran, it is sad to see us
attacked by our fellow citizens. I am sad to see the
unnecessary loss of life, I am sad to see the impact this has
had on Capitol Police officers, and I am sad to see the impact
this has had on our agency and on our country.
Although things are still raw and moving forward will be a
difficult process, I look forward to moving forward together as
an agency and as a country.
In closing, I want to honor Chief Sund's leadership. I
served under his command as a watch commander for three years
and was able to personally see his hard work and dedication. He
was fully dedicated to the United States Capitol Police, and he
cared about every employee on the department. I often hear
employees on the department praise his leadership and his
ability to inspire others. He has made a significant impact on
our agency. Thank you, Chief.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Captain Mendoza,
for that beautiful statement and for your work on behalf of our
country.
I am going to give you the bios on the other witnesses, and
then Senator Peters will swear them in.
Our first witness today is Robert J. Contee, Acting Chief
of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of
Columbia. Acting Chief Contee was sworn in as Acting Chief of
the MPD on January 2, 2021. He first joined the department in
1989 as a Cadet. After being sworn in, he became a patrol
officer before being promoted to Lieutenant and leading the
force's intelligence branch. In 2004, he was promoted to
Captain and put in charge of the Violent Crimes Branch. After
being promoted to 2nd District commander, he joined the Special
Operations Division. For the next decade, Acting Chief Contee
served in multiple leadership roles with the MPD, including as
Patrol Chief of Patrol Services South, where he oversaw several
police districts. He was appointed as Assistant Chief of the
Investigative Services Bureau in March 2018. Acting Chief
Contee is a graduate of D.C. schools and holds a Bachelor's
degree in professional studies from the George Washington
University. Acting Chief Contee grew up in the Carter Terrace
community in Northeast Washington, D.C.
Our second witness today will be Steven A. Sund. Mr. Sund
served as Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police from June 2019 to
January 16, 2021. Mr. Sund joined the Capitol Police in 2017 as
Assistant Chief and Chief of Operations. Prior to joining the
USCP, he spent nearly 25 years with the Metropolitan Police
Department where he started out as a patrol officer in 1990.
From 1999 to 2006, he served in MPD's Special Operations
Division and helped plan several major events, including the
2001 and 2005 Presidential Inaugurations. After joining the
MPD's Homeland Security Division, he rose through the ranks to
become Commander of the Special Operations Division in 2011. As
Commander of the Special Operations Division, he served as lead
planner for both the 2009 and 2013 Presidential Inaugurations
and many other National Special Security Events (NSSEs). He
received his Bachelor and Master of Science (MS) degrees from
Johns Hopkins and his Master of Arts in Homeland Security from
the Naval Postgraduate School.
Our third witness will be Michael Stenger, former Senate
Sergeant at Arms, who served in that capacity from April 2018
to January 7th of this year. He joined the Senate in 2011 as
Assistant Sergeant at Arms for the Office of Protective
Services and Continuity. He has also served as chief of staff
of the Sergeant at Arms and as Deputy Sergeant at Arms. Prior
to joining the Sergeant at Arms office, he was a 35-year
veteran of the United States Secret Service where he served in
many roles, including as the Special Agent in Charge of the
Washington Field Office. Immediately before joining the Senate,
he served as Assistant Director of the Office of Government and
Public Affairs for the Secret Service. He graduated from
Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is also a veteran, having
attained the rank of captain in the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC).
Our final witness today is Paul Irving. Mr. Irving served
as the Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. House of Representatives
from January 2012 through January 7th of this year. He joined
the United States Secret Service in 1983 after briefly serving
with the FBI. He served as head legal instructor for
constitutional law and criminal procedure at the Secret Service
Training Academy before joining the Presidential Protective
Division during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton
Administrations. Following his White House service, he served
as the Assistant Director for Congressional Affairs, Assistant
Director for Government Affairs, Assistant Director for
Homeland Security, and Assistant Director for Administration
for the Secret Service. He retired from the Secret Service in
2008 as Assistant Director and worked as a private security
consultant until his appointment as House Sergeant at Arms in
2012. He is a graduate of the American University and Whittier
Law School.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing voluntarily
today, and I look forward to your testimony.
Chairman Peters. It is the practice of the Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to swear in
witnesses, so if the witnesses would stand, including those
joining us virtually, and raise your right hand. Do you swear
that the testimony you will give before this Committee shall be
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you, God?
Mr. Contee. I do.
Mr. Sund. I do.
Mr. Stenger. I do.
Mr. Irving. I do.
Chairman Peters. Thank you. You may all be seated.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Do you want to begin then, Chief
Contee?
Mr. Contee. Sure.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT J. CONTEE, III,\1\ ACTING CHIEF OF POLICE,
METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Contee. Good morning, Chairman Peters, Chairwoman
Klobuchar, Ranking Members Portman and Blunt, and Members of
the Committees. I am Robert J. Contee, III, the Acting Chief of
Police of the Metropolitan Police Department, the primary
police force in the District of Columbia. I appreciate this
opportunity to brief you on the events of January 6, 2021, a
dark day for our country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Contee appears in the Appendix on
page 90.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to begin by highlighting a few key facts to
ensure the Committees and the audience understand the very
different roles of Mayor Muriel Bowser and the District of
Columbia, including MPD, and those of congressional and Federal
authorities.
First, MPD is prohibited by Federal law from entering the
Capitol or its grounds to patrol, make arrests, or serve
warrants without the consent or request of the Capitol Police
Board.
Second, the President of the United States, not the Mayor
of the District of Columbia, controls the D.C. National Guard.
The scope of the request by the Mayor must be limited to
supporting the District's local jurisdiction and authority,
which excludes Federal entities and property.
Third, since Mayor Bowser declared a public health
emergency last March, the District has not issued permits for
any large gatherings. Although the District and MPD take pride
in facilitating the exercise of First Amendment rights by all
groups, regardless of their beliefs, none of the public
gatherings on January 5th and 6th were issued permits by the
city.
On the morning of January 6th, MPD was prepared to support
our Federal partners with a First Amendment assembly that was
held primarily on Federal land, while continuing to patrol and
respond to calls for service throughout D.C.. Based on our
experience with prior demonstrations after the election, we
recognized that there was a possibility of violence, especially
after dark as smaller groups of protesters gathered with
malicious intent on our city streets.
To be clear, available intelligence pointed to a large
presence of some of the same groups that had contributed to
violence in the city after demonstrations in November and
December. The District had intelligence indicating the
potential for violent actions in the streets of the District of
Columbia.
In preparation for the anticipated demonstrations and the
possibility of violence on city streets, MPD was fully deployed
on 12-hour shifts the week of January 4th, with days off and
leave canceled.
At Mayor Bowser's request, several area police departments
were on standby in D.C., and more than 300 members of the
National Guard were deployed on District streets providing
traffic control and other services.
However, these resources were barely enough to counter an
event that had never happened in the history of the United
States: a mob of thousands of American citizens launching a
violent assault on the U.S. Capitol--the seat of our
Government--in an attempt to halt the counting of the electoral
ballots, an essential step in the peaceful transfer of power in
our Nation. The mob's sustained assault on the Capitol
precipitated an equally unprecedented response, with then-
Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund issuing an urgent request for
MPD to come assist in defending the Capitol. Needless to say,
when we received the call for help, MPD responded immediately.
Within minutes, our members arrived at a chaotic scene. The
violent mob had overrun protective measures at the Capitol in
an attempted insurrection, prior to the arrival of MPD officers
at the west front. Our objectives were to: one, stop the
rioters from entering the Capitol Building and remove those
that were already inside; two, secure a perimeter so that the
Capitol could be cleared for lawmakers; three, enable Congress
to resume their sessions to demonstrate to our country and to
the world that our democracy was still intact; and, last, once
the third objective had been accomplished, begin making arrests
of anyone violating the law.
At 2:22 p.m., a call was convened with, among others,
myself, leadership of the Capitol Police, the National Guard,
and the Department of the Army. I was surprised at the
reluctance to immediately send the National Guard to the
Capitol grounds.
In the meantime, by 2:30 p.m., the District had requested
additional officers from as far away as New Jersey and issued
notice of an emergency citywide curfew beginning at 6 p.m. From
that point, it took another 3\1/2\ hours until all rioters were
removed from the Capitol. Ninety minutes later, at 8 p.m.,
Congress was able to resume its critical work and fulfill its
constitutional duty.
Over the course of January 6th and into the early morning
of the 7th, approximately 1,100 MPD members responded to the
Capitol. At least 65 MPD members sustained injuries. Five
people lost their lives on January 6th. As we reflect on that
dark day, we offer our condolences to all of the grieving
families.
In closing, I appreciate the opportunity to highlight the
heroism of MPD officers who put their lives on the line to
protect the Capitol, Congress, and our democracy. But to ensure
the continued safety of the District and everyone in it, we
must be frank in looking at several critical issues. This
assault on the Capitol has exposed weaknesses in the security
of the most secure city in the country. The Federal police
forces in D.C. will be reexamining their security protocols
given the risks of both foreign and domestic terrorism.
As the Chief of the District's municipal police force, I
must think about our preparations not only for possible
attacks, but the daily impact of the changing operations of our
Federal partners. As they harden targets in the Federal
enclave, other buildings in the city under MPD jurisdiction may
become more likely targets.
This concludes my testimony. I am happy to answer any
questions.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
Mr. Sund.
TESTIMONY OF STEVEN A. SUND,\1\ FORMER CHIEF OF POLICE (2019-
2021), U.S. CAPITOL POLICE
Mr. Sund. Good morning, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking
Member Blunt, Chairman Peters, and Ranking Member Portman.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify before
your two Committees regarding the attack on the United States
Capitol that occurred January 6th.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Sund appears in the Appendix on
page 95.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been in policing for almost 30 years. The events I
witnessed on January 6th was the worst attack on law
enforcement and our democracy that I have seen in my entire
career. I witnessed insurgents beating police officers with
fists, pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades, and flagpoles.
These criminals came prepared for war.
They came with their own radio system to coordinate the
attack and climbing gear and other equipment to defeat the
Capitol's security features.
I am sickened by what I witnessed that day. Our officers
fought valiantly, using batons, shields, chemical munitions,
and pepper ball guns to hold back the attackers.
Capitol Police and responding law enforcement agencies
showed tremendous restraint by not using their firearms, which
would have likely led to a more chaotic situation and a
possible mass casualty incident. No civilian law enforcement
agency, to include the United States Capitol Police, is trained
or equipped to repel an insurrection of thousands of
individuals focused on breaching a building at all costs. I am
extremely proud and appreciative of the Capitol Police
officers, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the other law
enforcement agencies that came to our assistance.
A clear lack of accurate and complete intelligence across
several Federal agencies contributed to this event, and not
poor planning by the United States Capitol Police. We rely on
accurate information from our Federal partners to help us
develop effective security plans.
The intelligence that we based our planning on indicated
that the January 6th protests were expected to be similar to
the previous MAGA rallies in 2020, which drew tens of thousands
of participants. The assessment indicated that members of the
Proud Boys, white supremacist groups, Antifa, and other
extremist groups were expected to participate on January 6th
and that they may be inclined to become violent.
Based on the intelligence that we received, we planned for
an increased level of violence at the Capitol and that some
participants may be armed. But none of the intelligence we
received predicted what actually occurred.
Extensive preparations were put into place for January 6th
that included the full activation of the department,
intelligence and information sharing with our Federal and local
partners and department officials, implementing a significant
enhancement for member protection, extensive operational
enhancements to include significant civil disobedience
deployment and an expanded perimeter. We also distributed
additional protective equipment for our officers and
coordinated outside agency support.
As recently as Tuesday, January 5th, during a meeting I
hosted with my executive team, the Capitol Police Board, and a
dozen of the top law enforcement and military officials from
D.C., no entity, including the FBI, provided any new
intelligence regarding January 6th. It should also be noted
that the Secretary of Homeland Security did not issue an
elevated or imminent alert in reference to the events at the
United States Capitol on January 6th. 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.
I know that the images we saw of the officers battling for
their lives and the visuals on national TV had a profound
effect on the Nation. The United States Capitol Police did
everything we could based on the intelligence and available
resources to prepare for this event. While my officers were
fighting, my post was in the command center coordinating
resources from numerous agencies around the National Capital
Region to provide critically needed support. I was also
briefing the two Sergeants at Arms and working on establishing
accountability and priorities for the incoming resources.
As Capitol Police and outside resources began to
reestablish the security perimeter, I responded to the Capitol
Building to personally evaluate the situation and brief the
Sergeants at Arms and leadership. I acknowledge that under the
pressure of an unprecedented attack, a number of systems broken
down. One of the reported issues described by our officers was
a lack of clear communications and directions from officials.
It appears that the established incident command for the
Capitol Building was overwhelmed by the enormity of the
situation and as officials battling insurrections as opposed to
directing the response.
There have also been reports that some officers may have
felt confused or let down during the attack. As an official who
cares as much as I do about my colleagues, nothing is more
painful to me. These issues must be addressed through new
training policies and procedures. Even our best efforts were
not enough to stop this unprecedented assault on the Capitol.
However, casting blame solely on United States Capitol Police
leadership is not only misplaced, but it also minimizes what
truly occurred that day.
The focus going forward needs to be on the efforts to
improve intelligence and the coordination of security measures
between all involved agencies. Hopefully this will be part of
the focus of an independent after-action committee to look at
all aspects of the January attack on our Nation's Capitol.
In closing, I want to again recognize the heroic efforts of
the Capitol Police officers who on January 6th, outnumbered and
against the odds, successfully carried out their mission to
protect the Members of Congress and the legislative process. I
could not have been more proud to be part of their team and the
USCP mission.
I am available to answer any questions you may have. Thank
you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Mr. Sund.
Mr. Stenger.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL C. STENGER,\1\ FORMER SERGEANT AT ARMS AND
DOORKEEPER (2018-2021), U.S. SENATE
Mr. Stenger. Chairwoman Klobuchar, Chairman Peters, Ranking
Member Blunt, and Ranking Member Portman, the National Capital
Region is a unique environment for law enforcement. The U.S.
Capitol Police, in conjunction with the Sergeants at Arms, work
to provide security of the Capitol Complex and its population,
but there is a shared responsibility with other law enforcement
groups within the region. The sharing of information and
resources is paramount for success. Since assuming the position
of the Senate Sergeant at Arms, enhancement of the working
relationship between my office and the U.S. Capitol Police has
been a priority.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stenger appears in the Appendix
on page 106.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a proponent of the concept of intelligence-led
policing. This methodology can be used in assessing threats to
individual members as well as threats to the campus. As in all
intelligence operations, it is only as good as the analyst
assessing it, and that assessment is then placed in the
appropriate hands to take steps in order to mitigate any
threats.
We have to be careful of returning to a time when
possibility rather than probability drives security planning.
Though the events of January 6th certainly reveal that a review
of intelligence should be done, returning to the concept of
possibility driving security operations may result in the poor
use of resources. This is the constant give and take of
security planning.
There is an opportunity to learn lessons from the events of
January 6th. Investigations should be considered as to the
funding and travel of what appears to be professional
agitators. First Amendment rights should always be considered
in conjunction with these investigations.
The law enforcement coordination in the National Capital
Region should be reviewed to determine what can be done in a
more efficient and productive manner. Intelligence collection
and dissemination, training, and concepts on the use of force
must be consistent. This integration should be accomplished
without regard to self-interest and cost.
In conclusion, whenever you prepare for a major event, you
must always consider the possibility of some level of civil
disobedience at these demonstrations and plan accordingly. The
events of January 6th went beyond disobedience. This was a
violent, coordinated attack where the loss of life could have
been much worse.
This concludes my prepared remarks.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Mr. Stenger.
Mr. Irving.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL D. IRVING,\1\ FORMER SERGEANT AT ARMS (2012-
2021), U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Irving. Chairman Peters, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking
Member Portman, Ranking Member Blunt, and distinguished Members
of the Committees, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Irving appears in the Appendix on
page 108.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There has been a lot of press reporting about me, not all
of it accurate, and I appreciate the opportunity to address
some of that today.
My name is Paul Irving, and I served as the Sergeant at
Arms for the House of Representatives for the past nine years.
Serving in that role was one of the great honors of my life,
and I count it a privilege to have worked with Speakers from
both political parties, including Speaker Boehner, Speaker
Ryan, and Speaker Pelosi.
I am a law enforcement officer by training. My professional
career started more than 40 years ago as an intern at the
Department of Justice (DOJ) and then as a Clerk at the FBI. I
later became a Special Agent at the Secret Service where I
worked on two different Presidential protection details and
ultimately rose to the rank of Assistant Director.
Like you, I am profoundly saddened by the events of January
6th. The entire world witnessed horrific acts of violence and
destruction carried out by our very own citizens against a
global symbol of democracy--our seat of Government. I am
particularly saddened by the loss of life, which included three
officers. My heart goes out to all the families that lost a
loved one.
We began planning for the protests of January 6th in
December 2020. The planning relied on what we understood to be
credible intelligence provided by various State and Federal
agencies, including a special event assessment issued by the
Capitol Police on January 3rd. The January 3rd assessment
forecast that the protests were ``expected to be similar to the
previous Million MAGA March rallies'' that had taken place in
November and December 2020. Every Capitol Police daily
intelligence report between January 4th and January 6th,
including on January 6th, forecast the chance of civil
disobedience or arrests during the protests as ``remote to
improbable.''
I relied on that intelligence when overseeing the security
plan put forth by Chief Sund. The Chief's plan took on an all-
hands-on-deck approach whereby every available sworn Capitol
police employee with police powers was assigned to work on
January 6th. That meant approximately 1,200 Capitol police
officers were onsite, including Civil Disturbance Units and
other tactical teams.
I also understood that 125 National Guard troops were on
notice to be standing by for a quick response. The Metropolitan
Police Department was also on 12-hour shifts with no officers
on day off or leave, and they staged officers just north of the
Capitol to provide immediate assistance if required. The plan
was briefed to multiple law enforcement partners. 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. As one of the
senior security leaders responsible for the event, I am
accountable for that. I accept that responsibility, and as you
know, I have resigned my position.
Much has been said about whether optics affected my
judgment in a January 4th telephone call with Chief Sund and
Senate Sergeant at Arms Stenger about a National Guard offer to
incorporate 125 unarmed National Guard troops into the security
plan. The Guard's purpose would have been to work traffic
control near the Capitol.
My use of the word ``optics'' has been mischaracterized in
the media. Let me be clear: Optics as portrayed in the media
played no role whatsoever in my decisions about security, and
any suggestion to the contrary is false.
Safety was always paramount when making security plans for
January 6th. We did discuss whether the intelligence warranted
having troops at the Capitol. That was the issue. The
collective judgment at that time was no, the intelligence did
not warrant that. If the Chief or any other security leader had
expressed doubt about our readiness without the National Guard,
I would not have hesitated to request them.
Chief Sund, Senate Sergeant at Arms Stenger, and I were
confident in the Chief's plan, and I did whatever I could to
ensure that Chief Sund had the support needed to prepare and
execute that security plan. On January 6th, when I was asked
for authorization to request National Guard assistance, I
approved it.
There are important lessons to be learned from January 6th.
I commend the Committees for conducting this proactive review
of the events leading up to and on January 6th. I want to help
the staff and members make changes and improvements and to
ensure the tragedies of January 6th never occur again.
I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
We will now begin questioning. I want to start out just to
clear up one thing by just asking all of our witnesses a yes-no
question. Based on what we know now, including the recent
Department of Justice indictments, do you agree that there is
now clear evidence that supports the conclusion that the
January 6th insurrection was planned and it was a coordinated
attack on the U.S. Capitol? Everyone agree?
Mr. Contee. Yes.
Mr. Sund. Yes.
Mr. Stenger. Yes.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Would you agree that this attack
involved white supremacist and extremist groups?
Mr. Contee. Yes.
Mr. Sund. Yes.
Mr. Stenger. Yes.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Would you agree that this was a
highly dangerous situation which was horrific but could have
actually been worse without the courage of the officers that
you commanded?
Mr. Contee. Yes.
Mr. Sund. Yes.
Mr. Stenger. Yes.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Thank you. Now let us look at
what we knew leading up to it or what you knew leading up to it
or what people that worked for you knew leading up to it.
We knew that leading up to January 6th President Trump sent
nationwide tweets telling people to come to Washington on
January 6th and saying, ``Be there. Will be wild.'' According
to public reporting by the Washington Post, the FBI's Norfolk
Field Office issued a threat report on January 5th that
detailed specific calls for violence online in connection with
January 6th, including that protesters ``be ready to fight''
and ``go there ready for war.''
I guess I will start with you, Mr. Sund. When a critical
intelligence report is received by the Capitol Police from an
intelligence community (IC) source like the FBI, who usually
would receive it? I guess I will start with, did you receive
this report?
Mr. Sund. Thank you very much for the question, ma'am. In
the last 24 hours I was informed by the department that they
actually had received that report. One of our sworn members
that is assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF),
which is a task force with the FBI, received it the evening of
the 5th, reviewed it, and then forwarded it over to an official
at the Intelligence Division over at U.S. Capitol Police
headquarters.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. And so you had not seen it yourself?
Mr. Sund. No, ma'am. It did not go any further than that.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Then was it sent to the House and
Senate Sergeants at Arms?
Mr. Sund. I do not believe it went any farther than over to
the Sergeant at the Intelligence Division.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Mr. Irving, Mr. Stenger, did you
get that report beforehand?
Mr. Stenger. No.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Mr. Irving?
Mr. Irving. I did not.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I think that may have contributed in
part to the lack of information, but I will leave that for the
future.
Now let us go back to another report. I know on January
3rd, Mr. Sund, you said in your written testimony that the
Capitol Police published an intelligence assessment of the
event, including one on January 3rd. Do you mostly rely on your
Federal partners like the FBI to gather and analyze
intelligence on potential threats to the Capitol and Members of
Congress?
Mr. Sund. Yes, I think what is important to realize, as a
law enforcement agency, we are a consumer of intelligence and
information that is provided by the intelligence community. The
intelligence community is 18 Federal agencies that collect
information, do the analyzing of the raw data, raw
intelligence, and then provide it to us. We are reliant on that
information to be complete and accurate.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. But in that report we now know,
according to your testimony, that tens of thousands of
participants were likely to descend on Washington. Is that
correct?
Mr. Sund. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. The January 3rd memo, according
to the Washington Post, made clear that supporters of President
Trump see January 6th as the last opportunity to overturn the
results of the Presidential election, and that ``this sense of
desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive
to become violent.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Sund. Yes, it is, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. The article also quoted the memo as
stating that, unlike previous post-election protests, the
targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the
counterprotesters but, rather, Congress itself is the target on
the 6th. Is that right?
Mr. Sund. That is correct.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Did you have any indication that many
of these protesters might arrive armed or that members of
extremist groups might be there?
Mr. Sund. We knew that members of extremist groups would be
there, and there was social media calls for people to come
armed, yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. You have also said that at a January
5th meeting with Capitol police, the Sergeant at Arms and
Federal law enforcement, military officials, all present at the
meeting indicated that there was no new intelligence to report
for January 6th. Is that right?
Mr. Sund. That is correct, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. But your testimony states that the
Capitol Police took a number of steps after these assessments.
What you said was the largest number of Civil Disturbance Unit
platoons possible, increasing dignitary protection coverage,
coordinating with the D.C. Police, and order all-hands-on-deck
status for Capitol Police. Is that right?
Mr. Sund. That is correct, ma'am. We took extensive efforts
to prepare for the events based on the information, much of
which you just reviewed, yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Good. If the information was enough
to get you to do that, why didn't we take some additional
steps, why didn't you and others involved, to be better
prepared to confront the violence?
Mr. Sund. We expanded our perimeter. When we expanded the
perimeter, again, we knew there was going to be some maybe
limited violence, but we did. We expanded the perimeter. We
took a number of steps to outfit our personnel with additional
hard gear. We developed a plan for if we had protesters that
may be armed, and that was one of the reasons, the expanded
perimeter and the heightened risk, that I went to the Sergeant
at Arms and requested the National Guard.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. But now you realize it was not
enough, those security measures. Is that right?
Mr. Sund. Hindsight being what it is, You look around the
Capitol right now, and you see the resources that are brought
to bear based on the information we now know from January 6th.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Mr. Sund, you stated in your
written testimony that you first made a request for the Capitol
Police Board to declare an emergency and authorize National
Guard support on Monday, January 4th, and that request was not
granted.
Mr. Sund. That is correct, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Your testimony makes clear that the
current structure of the Capitol Police Board resulted in
delays in bringing in assistance from the National Guard. Would
you agree with that? That is one of the things we want to look
at.
Mr. Sund. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Do you think that changes are needed
to make clear that the Capitol Police Chief has the authority
to call in the National Guard?
Mr. Sund. I certainly do. I think in exigent circumstances
there needs to be a streamlined process for the Chief of Police
of the Capitol Police to have authority.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Mr. Stenger, do you think that
reforms are needed to the structure of the Capitol Police Board
to make that clear?
Mr. Stenger. I think a review of the Capitol Police Board
and their statutory authority probably would be a good time to
do this now. There are a lot of statutes out there on the
Capitol Police Board that go back many years. Things have
changed, and to make the board a little bit more nimble, it is
probably not a bad time and idea to take a look at what is
there.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. That is probably an understatement
with what happened, but thank you.
Mr. Irving, your views?
Mr. Irving. I would certainly agree with both Chief Sund
and Michael Stenger. I think a review would certainly be
warranted at this time of the Capitol Police Board.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Mr. Sund, your written testimony
states that you had no authority to request the assistance of
the National Guard without an emergency declaration of the
Capitol Police Board. On what rule, regulation, or authority
did you base that view?
Mr. Sund. I would have to go back and look at the specific
rule, but it is a standing rule that we have. I cannot request
the National Guard without a declaration of emergency from the
Capitol Police Board. It is kind of interesting because it is
very similar to the fact, I cannot even give my men and women
cold water on an excessively hot day without a declaration of
emergency. It is just a process that is in place.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. To be clear, apart from the Capitol
Police Board, you also faced delays in getting authorization to
bring in the National Guard from the Department of Defense. Is
that correct? We will be hearing from them next week.
Mr. Sund. Yes, ma'am, that is correct.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Would you agree that there were
serious issues at the Pentagon that contributed to the fact
that Guard troops did not arrive at the Capitol until about
5:40 p.m. that day after most of the violence had subsided?
Mr. Sund. I do not know what issues there were at the
Pentagon, but I was certainly surprised at the delays I was
hearing and I was seeing.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK, very good. My last question of
all of you, in addition to the reforms of the Police Board,
which you are very clear need to be made, any other suggestions
that would not involve classified information you have for us.
Mr. Sund?
Mr. Sund. As referenced to some of the recommendations?
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes.
Mr. Sund. Again, one of the big things that I think was a
contributing factor to this was intelligence. I think as you
meet with the law enforcement and the intelligence community,
we have a very good relationship. I think the aperture just
needs to be opened up a little bit farther. Like Chief Contee
had mentioned, January 6th was a new day. It was a change of
what threat we face, and I think getting them to open the
aperture and looking a little bit harder. I think internally,
looking at some of our policies, procedures, our processes for
how we handle special events, how we handle incident command,
what stuff we can do. Then looking at physical security of the
building and the grounds I think is going to be critical. I
know a lot of people have talked about the fencing, the open
environment. I understand and I know that goes way back, and
Members of Congress like the open environment. I think there
are ways to develop a more secure campus while keeping an open
environment, but I would leave that for more classified or
restricted hearings.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Anything you would add in addition, just any other thing
you would add in addition to what the former Police Chief laid
out here, Mr. Stenger?
Mr. Stenger. I would be very supportive about those areas
that the Chief mentioned. I think he is right on. I think there
is maybe another area, use of force, that probably needs to be
coordinated better in the region here. But certainly
intelligence needs to be taken a look at as to how it works.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK.
Mr. Stenger. We have a lot of people that we ramped up
since September 11th, and I think maybe it is time to take a
look at how efficient it is, the gathering of intelligence and
collection of intelligence.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. I am going to allow my
colleagues to ask that same question of you, Mr. Irving, and
you, Chief Contee, because I have gone over my time. Thank you.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Sund, you have brought up the issue of intelligence
throughout your testimony and the gaps that were there and how
we need to strengthen the intelligence. My understanding is
that that report has some fairly specific information that was
troubling. I was struck by the fact that you said the FBI
report did get sent to the Capitol Police, that it went to the
folks in the intelligence department, but that you were not
aware of it, which raises a really big question. Something
coming in like that right before an event that I think is
significant, it does not get to operational commanders who are
there to deal with it? How can that happen? How could you not
get that vital intelligence on the eve of what is going to be a
major event?
Mr. Sund. Thank you, sir. I know that is something that is
going to be looked at. I think that information would have been
helpful to be aware of. Again, looking at the information for
the first time yesterday, it is strictly raw data. It is raw
intelligence information that has come in, seen on a social
media post, lots of people posting on social media that need to
be corroborated and confirmed. Again, it is coming in as raw
data, so please keep that in mind.
But, I agree that is something we need to look at. What is
the process and how do we streamline that information getting
to where it needs to go?
Chairman Peters. I understand it is raw data, but it is the
eve of the event. You are not going to have time to do the kind
of analysis that you would normally like to do. That is
information that has to get to you, so that is clearly a major
problem.
My question is also related to the report that was put out
by Capitol Police, by your intelligence folks, on January 3rd.
The Intelligence Division of the Capitol Police issued an
internal report which reportedly stated--and some of this has
been out in the public domain--that instead of targeting
counterprotesters, as you have seen in the prior events that
occurred, that you have referenced earlier, that, this is a
quote that has been out in the public domain--that ``Congress
itself is the target on the 6th by Trump supporters.'' Congress
was the target.
The report also mentioned that members of the Proud Boys,
white supremacist groups, other extremist groups would be in
attendance, and, quote--again, out in public sources--``may be
inclined to become violent.''
So you have your own report. Did you see that report that
was put out on the 3rd?
Mr. Sund. Yes, I did.
Chairman Peters. How is that not a warning of some
extraordinary measures? I understand you increased your
presence with the folks you had there. But how is that not a
real big warning flag? If it was, what exactly did you do when
you read that report?
Mr. Sund. That was one of the reports that contributed to
the fact that we expanded our perimeter. I reached out to the
Metropolitan Police Department just knowing even before that
report, knowing that extremists were likely to be there in the
previous reports that have been called for on social media for
people to be armed. In talking with our partners over at the
Metropolitan Police Department, I reached out to say, ``Hey,
are you going to be able to provide us some support?'' We
coordinated that additional support the morning of the 6th.
Yes, we did take all that in consideration as we developed
the extensive security plans for this event.
Chairman Peters. So you changed plans on January 3rd after
getting that report?
Mr. Sund. Yes, we adjusted our perimeter; we did a number
of things. We actually were adjusting our perimeter probably a
little bit before that as well.
Chairman Peters. That was happening before. We are going to
want to know more specifically, when you get that. Of course, I
think we are going to see you got additional information from
the FBI, for example, but that did not get to you. I understand
that.
Mr. Sund. Yes.
Chairman Peters. The other thing that I think is important
for us to understand--and I have heard all of you mention this
in your testimony--is this was not just a random violent
attack. It was coordinated. I believe in your testimony as
well--I am going to ask other witnesses to respond to this,
too, because all of you mentioned that. How do you define
``coordinated''? What did we actually see from these folks that
leads you to believe that it was coordinated? I think in your
testimony now you just mentioned military-style coordination.
That would mean command and control; it would mean
understanding the layout of the Capitol; it may mean knowing
the internal operations of defense perimeters, of folks that
are engaged.
Talk to me. What did you see that leads you to believe that
this was a coordinated attack? I would like our other witnesses
to engage in that as well.
Mr. Sund. Yes, I am able to provide you a quick overview of
why I think it was a coordinated attack.
One, these people came specifically with equipment. You are
bringing climbing gear to a demonstration. You are bringing
explosives. You are bringing chemical spray such as what
Captain Mendoza talked about. You are coming prepared.
The fact that the group that attacked our west front,
approximately 20 minutes before the event at the Ellipse ended,
which means they were planning on our agency not being at what
they call ``full strength,'' watching the other event, saying
that event is ending, OK, everybody get on post, they are going
to be marching our way, knowing that we may not be at full
strength at that time. Then also the fact that we were dealing
with two pipe bombs that were specifically set right off the
edge of our perimeter to, what I suspect, draw resources away.
I think there was a significant coordination with this
attack.
Chairman Peters. Anyone else? Chief Contee, I think you
also believe it was a coordinated attack.
Mr. Contee. Oh, absolutely. My view is from the day of the
incident. I think there were hand signals that were being used
by several of the insurrectionists. There was radio
communication by several individuals that were involved; the
coordinated use of chemical emissions to include bear spray by
several people that were out there. I certainly believe it was
coordinated.
To Chief Sund's point regarding the placement of the pipe
bombs in the area, their discovery prior to this event, all of
those things, and plus adding to that what we know in hindsight
now as a result of the ongoing investigation that is being
handled by the FBI, as they continue to scrub social media, I
think we are learning more and more and more that this was
clearly a coordinated effort.
Chairman Peters. Real quick, Mr. Irving? Then I will ask
another question.
Mr. Irving. Based on the information provided by Chief
Contee and Chief Sund, I would agree. The evidence would
indicate a coordinated attack.
Chairman Peters. We are looking at folks that were coming
out in intelligence reports, groups like the Oath Keepers,
Proud Boys, others that were engaged, these violent extremist
groups, which we clearly need to collect more intelligence on.
It will be the subject of another hearing that we will do
regarding this.
But if you look at what the DOJ is now prosecuting, 200
Federal cases, the FBI has linked at least 40 to extremist
groups, 59 to other defendants that have connections on social
media, to violent or extremist rhetoric, conspiracy theories,
this is clearly an area that we have to focus on as to why did
we not have more information about these groups that were
coming here planning--and usually you leave a trail when you
are planning; either that or you are real sophisticated using
encrypted devices and other things. But those are things that
we are going to have to be looking at. Clearly, the National
Guard presence was critical. I know you are going to get a lot
of questions related to that.
But, Chief Contee, in my remaining time, just a question,
and you mentioned this in your testimony. But in an earlier
statement, Chief, you stated that you were stunned by ``the
tepid response'' of the Army officials in response to Chief
Sund's request for assistance while the violent siege was
escalating. Clearly, here we have a coordinated attack. All of
you saw this immediately the way they were doing it. I can
imagine the conversations with the National Guard. Chief, you
were stunned by the tepid response. Could you clarify that and
tell us exactly how those conversations went?
Mr. Contee. Yes, so sometime after 2 p.m., I had left the
west front of the Capitol after initially being at the scene
assessing what was going on, looking at the violent actions
that were taking place. Shortly thereafter, there was a phone
call that was convened between several officials; Chief Sund
was on the call literally pleading for it. There were several
Army officials that were on the call. I do not know all by name
who were on the call. Several officials from District
Government that were on it. Chief Sund was pleading for the
deployment of the National Guard. In response to that, there
was not an immediate, ``Yes, the National Guard is responding.
Yes, the National Guard is on the way. Yes, the National Guard
are being restaged from traffic posts to respond.'' The
response was more asking about the plan; what was the plan for
the National Guard? The response was more focused on, in
addition to the plan, the optics, how this looks with boots on
the ground on the Capitol.
My response to that was simply--I was just stunned that, I
have officers that were out there literally fighting for their
lives, and, we are kind of going through what seemed like an
exercise to really check the boxes, and it was not an immediate
response.
When I asked specifically, Chief Sund, was he requesting
the National Guard and was that request being denied, the
response from the U.S. Department of the Army was, ``No, we are
not denying the request.'' But they were concerned--they did
have concerns. I was, again, just stunned at that response.
Chairman Peters. Thank you. Senator Blunt.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairman.
Chief Sund, if I have your testimony correct this morning,
I think what I am hearing you say is based on the intelligence
you saw on January 3rd, after that on January 4th you decided
this was going to be a different kind of protest than you had
seen in November and December, and that is when you asked for
an expanded perimeter and National Guard assistance. Is that
correct?
Mr. Sund. The information we received, yes, it was very
similar to the previous assessments. It was just a little bit
more detailed. We had been analyzing kind of how we responded
to the previous MAGA marches and decided to expand the
perimeter.
Really, when you expand an perimeter as large as we
expanded it, it creates a large area you have to defend, and
that was the primary reason, knowing that these protesters were
coming here, we were the focus of the protest and the expanded
perimeter, and we knew this was going to be a long day.
Senator Blunt. Did you know from the time you expanded the
perimeter that you were going to have to have more help in all
likelihood to defend that perimeter than your force would be
able to provide?
Mr. Sund. We knew we could utilize the additional support,
yes.
Senator Blunt. Why did you believe that you needed the
approval of Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger to request assistance of
the National Guard?
Mr. Sund. That has always been the case. We only request
the National Guard for very specific events, usually the
Inauguration, and that requires a declaration of emergency from
the Capitol Police Board to utilize those resources.
Senator Blunt. Do you know if there is a statutory
requirement for that?
Mr. Sund. I could look into that and get to thank you as a
follow-up if you would like, Senator.
Senator Blunt. I do not know that there is, but I do know
that if you get the approval to expand the perimeter and you do
not have the assistance to do that, that is obviously a
problem. Why didn't you contact the third member of the Police
Board, the Architect of the Capitol (AOC), Mr. Blanton?
Mr. Sund. Thank you for that question, sir. My conduit to
the Capitol Police Board was usually through the House and
Senate Sergeant at Arms. They were the ones usually having the
communications with the department, especially law enforcement-
related issues. They are both law enforcement. Also the fact
that Mr. Stenger at the time is the Capitol Police Board
Chairperson. But usually outside the monthly Capitol Police
Board meeting that we would have unless it was an issue
specific to the Architect regarding, building structure or
something like that, my conduit was regularly the House and
Senate Sergeant at Arms.
Senator Blunt. Why do you think the Architect of the
Capitol is on the Police Board?
Mr. Sund. As one of the voting members and providing
oversight.
Senator Blunt. But apparently not enough oversight that you
thought you needed to involve him in the conversation.
Mr. Sund. Like I said, my usual conduit was going through
the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms. That is already two
people I have to go to. You know, going to three? In the future
I guess if that is something that we will implement, then I
will implement it. But I was just following my usual course of
action.
Senator Blunt. Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger both--let us
start with Mr. Irving. Why was the request for National Guard
assistance not approved at the same time you approved the
expansion of the perimeter? Mr. Irving?
Mr. Irving. Senator, I did not take the call from Chief
Sund on the 4th as a request. Chief Sund called me to tell me
that he had received an offer from the National Guard to
provide us 125 unarmed troops to work traffic control on the
perimeter of the Capitol. Shortly after that discussion, I
said, ``Let us include Sergeant at Arms Stenger as Chair of the
Board and another senior official with quite a bit of
experience.'' The three of us talked it through, and during
that call the number one question on the table was: Did the
intelligence support that additional offer for those 125
troops?
Senator Blunt. Did you discuss this with anybody except
Sergeant at Arms Stenger and Chief Sund?
Mr. Irving. No. It was just this one phone call, and during
that call we all agreed that the intelligence did not support
the troops and collectively decided to let it go. Michael
Stenger then said, ``How about we put them on standby just in
case?'' That is what we ended up doing.
Senator Blunt. OK.
Mr. Irving. But from what I remember, everyone was very
satisfied that we had a robust plan, security plan, that was
consistent with the intelligence that we had at the time.
Senator Blunt. Mr. Stenger, why did you think that the
troops were on standby?
Mr. Stenger. I brought up----
Senator Blunt. They must have been standing way away from
where we needed them if it took hours to get them here. What
did that mean, they were going to be on standby?
Mr. Stenger. What I did, when I spoke to the Chief, when
the Chief brought it up to me, this attempt to get the National
Guard, and it apparently was not going forward, I suggested to
him that he reach out--he knew the National Guard commander
from his previous work in the Metropolitan Police Department,
and I suggested he reach out to the National Guard commander
for a couple reasons. One of them was I had either read in the
paper or heard on the news that the National Guard in D.C. was
rather reticent to engage with demonstrations at this time
because of the issues that had arisen during the White House
demonstrations of a month ago, and that we need to make sure
that the National Guard was engaged in this.
Senator Blunt. Do you think you did make sure that they
were engaged and would be willing? I am going to have to go to
one more question here. Did you think they were engaged and
would be willing if called on?
Mr. Stenger. Yes, that is what I asked the Chief to
determine from the general.
Senator Blunt. All right. Mr. Irving, you said in your
testimony that when asked for National Guard assistance, you
approved it. Mr. Sund stated that he asked for the National
Guard assistance at 1:09 p.m., and it was approved at 2:10 p.m.
Why would it take an hour to approve National Guard assistance
on your part in that moment of crisis, Mr. Irving?
Mr. Irving. Senator, from my recollection, I did not
receive a request for approval for National Guard until shortly
after 2 p.m., when I was in Michael Stenger's office.
Senator Blunt. All right. Let me get that straightened out.
Mr. Sund, do you know when you asked for National Guard
assistance? Was it 1:09 or was it 2 p.m.?
Mr. Sund. It was 1:09 p.m., sir.
Senator Blunt. 1:09 p.m. Who did you ask for assistance at
1:09 p.m.?
Mr. Sund. It was from Mr. Irving. I believe he was in the
company of Mr. Stenger at the time as well.
Senator Blunt. Mr. Irving, why would you not remember that?
Mr. Irving. Senator, I have no recollection of a
conversation with Chief Sund at that time. I was on the floor
during the Electoral College session, and my conversation with
Chief Sund in that timeframe was shortly before 1:30 p.m. when
I recall he was describing conditions outside as deteriorating.
He may, in fact, be submitting a request, and I carried that
forward, and that was as much as I can tell you. I have no
phone record of a call from Chief Sund at 1:09 p.m.
Senator Blunt. Did you discuss that request at 1:09 p.m. or
whenever you got it with anybody else, or did you and Mr.
Stenger make that decision then?
Mr. Irving. I did not get a request at 1:09 p.m. that I can
remember. The first conversation I had with Chief Sund in that
timeframe was at 1:28 or 1:30 p.m., and in that conversation he
indicated that conditions were deteriorating, he might be
looking for National Guard approval and approval of our mutual
aid agreements with local law enforcement. I went to Mike
Stenger's office awaiting an update----
Senator Blunt. This is a time, Mr. Irving--I am sure my
colleagues will want to follow up on this because I am out of
time, but this is a time when the difference in 1:30 and 2:10
or 1:09 and 2:10 makes a big difference. One of the things I am
wondering--and we do not have time for you to answer this, but
I am going to tell you what I am thinking here--is in a moment
like this, if your focus is chiefly on the safety of House
Members--and I would certainly understand that--and Mr.
Stenger's is chiefly on the safety of Senate Members, maybe
that is a problem here where the Board really cannot function
as a Board because you have such diverse areas of immediate
responsibility. But whatever happened here does not seem to me
to be in agreement with the various timeframes, and I am out of
time, Mr. Chairman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Blunt. Senator
Peters and I are going to tradeoff chairing here with the
votes, and we have a set order that all the Senators' staff
have based on a melded set of rules between the two Committees.
I would like to submit for the record a written statement from
the United States Capitol Police Labor Committee dated February
23, 2021.\1\
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\1\ The U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee statement appears in
the Appendix on page 140.
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Chairman Peters. Without objection.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. Senator Portman.
Chairman Peters. Ranking Member Portman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, with regard to the conversation we just had
on the discrepancies with regard to the National Guard
assistance, I would request that both, Chief Sund, you and Mr.
Irving provide us with those phone records. I know there have
been some interviews that have been conducted, but I am not
sure we have the phone records, and that seems that would clear
up some of the confusion.
I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about
preparedness. Chief Sund, in your testimony you talked about
the need for better intelligence and better coordination. That
was your conclusion, and I think that is true. Certainly
everything we have learned indicates that was part of the
problem.
But what about preparedness? We have received information
that prior to January 6th, Capitol Police officers were not
trained on how to respond to an infiltration of the Capitol
Building. Is that correct, Mr. Sund?
Mr. Sund. When you talk about infiltration, are you talking
about a large insurrection like we saw on January 6th? No.
Senator Portman. Why not? Why wouldn't we be prepared for
an infiltration of the Capitol given the risk that is out
there? I would say to Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger, both of you
have had distinguished careers with the Secret Service. I would
ask you all to just give me a quick yes or no answer. Does the
Secret Service have training regarding infiltration as an
example of the White House? Yes or no. Mr. Stenger? Mr. Irving?
Mr. Irving. Senator.
Senator Portman. I will take that as a yes.
Mr. Irving. Yes.
Senator Portman. If it is a no--OK. Mr. Stenger, are you a
yes also?
Mr. Stenger. Yes.
Senator Portman. OK. It seems obvious that you would have
training on responding to an infiltration. I think if nothing
else comes out of this process, we have to figure out how to
deal with, again, the real danger that is out there, and it
seems to me the intelligence reports but also just the previous
demonstrations would indicate a need for that kind of training.
Let me ask you about something else, if I could, Mr. Sund,
and that has to do with the U.S. Capitol Police officers that I
saw on video and the world saw fighting against this attack in
street uniforms or soft uniforms. Many of them did not have
riot gear. I am told by contrast D.C. Metropolitan Police
Department provides all of its officers with such gear,
including helmets, shields, gloves, gas masks. Having seen
those incredibly disturbing videos and photographs of your
brave officers attempting to hold the line to defend the
Capitol without that kind of riot gear, are all Capitol Police
officers outfitted with riot gear?
Mr. Sund. No, they are not, sir.
Senator Portman. They are not. Why are they not?
Mr. Sund. If you look at the way we outfit our officers, it
would probably be very similar to--I think you will find even
with Metropolitan--and I had been with Metropolitan for a
number of years. They will have a certain number of officers,
CDU platoons, as they call. It is not the entire force that is
outfitted to the Level 1 CDU with the big protective gear, the
helmets, things like that. We have seven CDU platoons that we
can activate. Four of those
platoons--it is 40 people in a platoon--are activated to what
we call the Level 1, the full CDU gear and equipment. It
requires extensive cost, extensive training to keep and
maintain that level. For us, a number of our officers are
posted in interior posts, screening posts, things like that,
where that gear would not provide them any support.
We have determined, up until January 6th, that that number
of CDU platoons had sufficed for all the demonstrations that we
have been dealing with on Capitol Hill----
Senator Portman. Mr. Sund, I would just say, obviously,
those officers who you say had interior posts needed it that
day. It is not accurate to say that they did not need it. But I
know that you activated seven of these Civil Disturbance Unit
platoons, and only four of them had riot gear. I do not know
why you would have a Civil Disturbance Unit platoon that did
not have riot gear. But you have just testified that that is
true, that only four of them had it. Is that correct?
Mr. Sund. That is correct, and just one additional point.
Since I have been Chief, I have actually pushed for every
member in the department to have riot helmets. I ordered those
back in September. We had been looking at delays because of
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) from the manufacturer
getting them delivered, and they actually just started being
delivered January 4th and distributed to our officers just days
before this, with limited numbers being given to the officers
prior to this event.
Senator Portman. Yes, too late for many of those officers.
Chief Contee, the comment was made that the Metropolitan
Police does not all have riot gear. Is that true? I thought
that the Metropolitan Police Department officers did have
access to riot gear. Could you comment on that?
Mr. Contee. Yes. So we have seven platoons that have the
hard and hardened gear, but all of our officers have ballistic
helmets; all of our officers have batons; all of our officers
have gloves as well and gas masks. Our entire department are
deployed with that level, but when you are talking about the
hardened part, all of the other extras, we have seven platoons
that is a different layer of protection.
Senator Portman. But every officer has a helmet; every
officer has the protective gloves; every officer has the baton.
Is that correct?
Mr. Contee. Gas mask. That is correct.
Senator Portman. Gas mask, yes. It appeared to the
Metropolitan Police Department, I am told, that the Capitol
Police officers did not have the training in civil disturbance
tactics that they had. That is what I was told by some of the
interviews that we have had. Chief Contee, is that correct?
Mr. Contee. Yes, I have heard the same thing with respect
to the training of the U.S. Capitol Police officers.
Senator Portman. Are all of your Metropolitan Police
officers trained in civil disturbance tactics?
Mr. Contee. We have platoons that are trained for every
patrol district and Special Operations Division. Some officers
do not have the civil disturbance training. Those officers,
generally they work on traffic duties or they work assignments
back in patrol.
Senator Portman. Chief Sund----
Mr. Contee. If I could add, too, one other thing.
Senator Portman. Yes.
Mr. Contee. All officers who leave the training academy,
they get the basic Civil Disturbance Unit training. All of our
officers do get the basic training, but we might have some
members, for example, who have been on for 30 years, and they
have not been CDU trained, and they work back at a patrol
district. But all of our members coming out of the academy,
they receive the Civil Disturbance Unit training.
Senator Portman. Mr. Sund, is that true with Capitol Hill
police officers also? Are they all trained in civil disturbance
tactics as they go through their training?
Mr. Sund. That was a process being implemented. I can check
and let you know if that has been fully implemented for new
recruits coming out of the academy. That was one of the
initiatives I was working on.
Senator Portman. We were working on that, but as far as you
know, this training was not being provided even for new
officers, much less for those----
Mr. Sund. I believe the new officers coming out were, but I
just need to confirm that.
Senator Portman. Yes, I think the bottom line here is that,
unfortunately, our officers were not given the proper training
with regard to infiltration of the building or the complex with
regard to dealing with civil disturbance, and they did not have
the equipment necessary to push back and, most importantly, to
protect themselves. My hope is that, again, one of the ways
that this joint hearing and this Committee report can be
helpful is to bring the Capitol Police Department up to speed.
I appreciate the sacrifice and the bravery of that day, but I
think we also owe it to those officers to provide them the
training and equipment they need to protect themselves and to
protect the Capitol.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member.
The Chair now recognizes Senator Leahy.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEAHY
Senator Leahy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to follow up on what Senator Portman said. I
agree with his concerns, but I might ask a question from the
Appropriations Committee, and I know time is limited, so these
could be yes or no answers.
The Appropriations Committee has always worked in a
bipartisan fashion to get money to the Capitol Police. So, Mr.
Sund, yes or no: The Appropriations Committee and ultimately
the Congress has met your request for salaries and operating
expenses in every fiscal year. Is that not correct?
Mr. Sund. Yes, sir.
Senator Leahy. Thank you. Mr. Stenger, the Appropriations
Committee and ultimately the Congress has met your request for
salaries and operating expenses in every fiscal year. Is that
correct?
I do not hear an answer. I will ask Mr. Irving. Mr. Irving,
the Appropriations Committee and ultimately the Congress has
met your request for salaries and operating expenses in every
fiscal year. Is that correct?
Mr. Irving. Yes, that is correct.
Senator Leahy. Mr. Stenger.
Mr. Stenger. Yes, that is correct, sir.
Senator Leahy. Thank you very much. I have to think not
that we had inadequate resources, but a failure to deploy the
people that we were supposed to. I look at those who appeared.
I looked at the lives that were lost, the police who fought to
protect our Capitol. We saw this as a violent, and I would say
a planned and organized, attack on the United States, on the
U.S. Government, by domestic terrorists. I hope they are all
going to be prosecuted as fully as they can be. But when we see
people encouraging them, including from the former President of
the United States, who urged his followers to fight and to show
strength, I really wonder why we did not take it seriously
enough to be prepared for them, the hours it took to bring in
the National Guard, and everything else.
Mr. Sund, I read your detailed letter to Speaker Pelosi,
but you said there was not enough intelligence shared. But in
your same letter, you stated that the intelligence assessment,
and I am quoting here, ``indicated that members of the Proud
Boys, white supremacist groups, Antifa, and other extremist
groups were expected to participate in the January 6th event
and that they may be inclined to become violent.''
How much more intelligence do we need than that?
Mr. Sund. Yes, sir, that is correct. That is what the
intelligence assessment said. It was very similar to the
intelligence assessments that we had for the November and
December MAGA marches. The intelligence assessments that we had
developed for the January 6th event all the way up until
January 6th were all saying very much the same thing, and that
is what we had planned for. We had planned for the possibility
of violence, the possibility of some people being armed, not
the possibility of a coordinated military-style attack
involving thousands against the Capitol.
Senator Leahy. But violent and armed strike me as pretty
strong things, and I would suggest that everybody get together
and look at the future, because if you have something that goes
on for months, the President calling them, everybody else
calling them, I am worried that there was not more response
there. I think until we root out the hate and throw the rioters
to our door that day, no fence or tank or barrier is going to
provide the safety we need. We want safety, but also, talking
about what Benjamin Franklin said, ``Those who would give up
essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety.''
But I know a vote is on, and before I close, I do want to
commend you, Chief Contee, for your swift response. You do not
have an easy job, charged with protecting a city as large as
Washington, D.C., and balancing the delicate balance with
dozens of other law enforcement. But I commend the two Chairs
and Ranking Members for holding this hearing. We will hold more
in Appropriations, but we are going to look very closely at the
requests this year and say, ``What do we do if we have another
one of these?''
I thank you, and I yield back my time.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Leahy.
The Chair recognizes Senator Johnson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start
off by thanking our law enforcement witnesses for your service.
Some of what I have seen from testimony, it seems like there is
a fair amount of thought, a fair amount of due diligence that
went into this. So, again, I appreciate your service.
I also want to say I find the videos, as you said, Chief
Sund, sickening, the violence reprehensible, the racial slurs
repugnant, and I want to make sure the perpetrators, the people
that engaged in the violence are prosecuted to the full extent
of the law.
I have a long list of questions which this format really
does not lend itself to asking, so what I will be doing is
preparing a letter for the Committee Chair and hoping that they
will ask those questions and investigate these issues that I
will be listing. But what I want to do in terms of asking some
questions, I want to start out by reading excerpts from what I
thought was a very interesting eyewitness account by J. Michael
Waller. He is a Senior Analyst for strategy at the Center of
Security Policy. His areas of concentration include political
and psychological warfare and subversion. He is a former
professor and instructor at the Institute of World Politics at
the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a current lecturer at the
John F. Kennedy School Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. He
wrote this piece titled, ``I Saw Provocateurs at the Capitol
Riot on January 6th,'' and he basically arrived on the scene
about 11:30 from Union Station, and I will just start reading
it.
``At about 11:30, I walked from near Union Station . . .
and noticed a small number of Capitol Police dressed in full
riot gear, with shin guards and shoulder guards. . . . then [I]
walked . . . up Pennsylvania Avenue toward an empty Freedom
Park.''
He noticed that the speech had broken up, and so a crowd
was walking down Constitution Avenue. He joined them at 13th
Street. But he said ``the mood of the crowd was positive and
festive.''
``Of the thousands of people I passed or who passed me
along Constitution Avenue, some were indignant and contemptuous
of Congress, but not one appeared angry or incited to riot.
Many of the marchers were families with small children; many
were elderly, overweight, or just plain tired or frail--traits
not typically attributed to the riot-prone.''
``Many wore pro-police shirts or carried pro-police black
and blue flags.''
``Although the crowd represented a broad cross-section of
Americans, mostly working-class by their appearance and manner
of speech, some people stood out. A very few didn't share the
jovial, friendly, earnest demeanor of the great majority. Some
obviously didn't fit in.'' He describes four different types of
people: plainclothes militants, agents provocateurs, fake Trump
protesters, and then a disciplined, uniformed column of
attackers. I think these are the people that probably planned
this.
He goes on: ``The D.C. Metropolitan police were their usual
professionally detached selves, standing on curbs or at street
crossings and exchanging an occasional greeting from
marchers.''
``When we crossed First Street NW to enter the Capitol
grounds where the Capitol Police had jurisdiction, I noticed no
police at all. Several marchers expressed surprise.''
``The openness seemed like a courtesy gesture from
Congress, which controls security.''
``But that appearance of low threat level made no sense.''
``Yet no Capitol Police appeared anywhere from what we
could see''--now, again, I am taking these excerpts in order,
but there is a lot more to this piece.
``What looked like tens or even hundreds of thousands of
people surged down the avenues as far as one could see. . . .
but almost everyone seemed talkative and happy.''
``No police could be seen on the platform for now. No
police could be seen anywhere.''
``People kept surging in from Constitution Avenue, and the
plaza quickly filled up and overflowed onto the lawn. Everyone
squeezed closer and closer together, with most in high spirits.
Some trouble began up in the front, near the base of the
inaugural platform itself, but we could not see what was
happening.''
``Then something happened at the front of the crowd. . . .
It seemed like a scuffle, but from 40 feet back, I couldn't
see. People started chanting `USA, USA,' and other slogans.''
``For a few seconds I saw what looked like police in a
tussle with some of the marchers up front--what appeared to be
an organized group in civilian clothes. This organized group
are the cell I call the `plainclothes militants.' They fit
right in with the MAGA people.''
``Suddenly energy surged from the front of the crowd as the
anti-riot police, above on the inaugural platform, visibly
tensed up. . . . One fired a teargas canister--not at the
plainclothes militants at the front line, but into the crowd
itself. Then another. Flash grenades went off in the middle of
the crowd.''
``The tear gas changed the crowd's demeanor. There was an
air of disbelief as people realized that the police whom they
supported were firing on them. `What are you doing--we support
you,' someone yelled.''
``All of a sudden, pro-police people felt the police were
attacking them, and they didn't know why.''
``More tear gas. A canister struck a girl in the face,
drawing blood. The pro-police crowd went from disbelief and
confusion to anger.''
I will stop there. The last five pages is titled
``Provocateurs Turn Unsuspecting Marchers into an Invading
Mob.''
I would really recommend everybody on the Committee read
this account, and I ask that it be entered into the record.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The information referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the
Appendix on page 112.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But, Chief Sund, I want to ask you, is one of the reasons--
the House managers made a big deal that this was predictable,
this was foreseeable, which I do not believe. Do you believe
that the breach of the Capitol was foreseeable and predictable?
Mr. Sund. No, I do not. If you look at some of our other
partner agencies, I think Acting Chief Contee actually made the
statement that the breach of the Capitol was not something
anybody anticipated, nor do I think some of our Federal
partners expected it. I do not think Secret Service would have
brought up the Vice President if they expected it.
Senator Johnson. Is part of that because of what you had
experienced in the past, what this Mr. Waller experiences, the
vast majority of Trump supporters are pro-law enforcement and
the last thing they would do is violate the law?
Mr. Sund. I will say that, information I have received from
some of my officers where they were trying to prevent people
from coming into the building, and people were showing up
saying, ``Hey, we are police, let us through,'' and still
wanting to violate the law to get inside the building.
Senator Johnson. Again, I have a long list. I want to close
with the two former Sergeant of Arms. I knew these Committees
were going to start an investigation. I waited a couple weeks.
I did not see any oversight letter go out, so I wrote my own on
the 21st, and I just have a question for both the former
Sergeant of Arms. Did you get my oversight letter, with my
questions?
Mr. Irving. I did not receive your letter. I left town
right after I resigned, but I certainly look forward to working
with you and your staff to answer your questions.
Senator Johnson. OK. If you would give us an address,
because we sent it to the Acting Sergeant of Arms. That Acting
Sergeant of Arms will not even let us know whether they passed
that letter along to you. Apparently they did not.
Mr. Stenger, did you receive my letter?
Mr. Stenger. I do not recall it, Senator, but it might have
come. I do not recall.
Senator Johnson. Chief Sund, one last question for you. Do
you regret resigning?
Mr. Sund. Yes, I do, sir. I certainly do regret resigning.
I love this agency. I love the women and men in this agency,
and I regret the day I left.
Senator Johnson. Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger, I really wish
you would respond--first of all, look for my letter, and I
would like an answer to that as quickly as possible.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Johnson.
We are waiting for Senator Warner and any other member--I
see Senator Rosen. Would you like to go ahead? Because you are
the first member on. Senator Rosen.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN
Senator Rosen. Perfect. Thank you very much, Senator
Klobuchar, and thank you, everyone, for being here today.
Bringing this hearing is much needed, and I think it is the
first of many.
But I would like to start off by expressing that my
thoughts are with the brave Capitol Police officers that put
their lives on the line to protect us on January 6th and their
heroic actions like the ones of Eugene Goodman. They redirected
those violent rioters away from us. They are going to forever
be embedded in our minds, and we know that so many of these
courageous men and women, they are really hurting in the
aftermath of the insurrection. I have been particularly
heartbroken to hear about the death of Capitol Police Officer
Howard Liebengood, who has been protecting the Senate since
2005. He was stationed by the door of my Russell office. My
prayers are with him and his family and his loved one.
But, insurrectionists, when they came to storm our Capitol
on January 6th, they came on not only with weapons but also
with hate. Mere weeks before International Holocaust
Remembrance Day, the world watched in horror as a rioter inside
the Capitol proudly wore a ``Camp Auschwitz'' shirt as he and
others violently pushed forward on the House and the Senate
floors. All the while the rioters are waving Confederate flags,
are hanging nooses on the front lawn. They are verbally
assaulting a Jewish reporter outside the Capitol, saying, ``You
are cattle today.'' That refers to cattle cars that used to
transport Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. This
violent attack on the Capitol featured followers of the anti-
Semitic QAnon conspiracy theory.
Mr. Contee, on January 4th, the Metro Police Department
arrested Enrique Tarrio, leader of the racist, anti-Semitic
Proud Boys hate group. The FBI claims that the next day it
shared with MPD concrete intelligence about extremist plans for
violence on January 6th, including specific threats on Members
of Congress, maps of the tunnels under the Capitol Complex. If
MPD was tracking extremist, potentially violent white
supremacist activity, then what exactly did you know on January
5th? And why didn't you alert anyone?
Mr. Contee. Thank you for that question. What the FBI said,
ma'am, on January 5th was in the form of an email. I would
certainly think that something as violent as an insurrection in
the Capitol would warrant, a phone call or something. But as
Chief Sund mentioned earlier, the information that was sent was
uncorroborated information. It was raw. The information that we
received through the same lines--through the JTTF--that
information was not fully vetted and had not been sent through
the chains of the Metropolitan Police Department. What the
Metropolitan Police Department was prepared for was the larger
violence and demonstrations that we expected to see in our
city.
Senator Rosen. I have to ask Mr. Sund the same question
now. What did you know as of Tuesday night, January 5th?
Because I have a follow-up for both of you on this one. So,
quickly, Mr. Sund, what did you know on January 5th? And were
you alarmed or not alarmed? What did you expect?
Mr. Sund. Yes, I was concerned. We had the intelligence
that was coming out, the intelligence that we would be planning
for. Again, keep in mind the intelligence assessments that we
had developed at the end of December and the one for January
3rd were very similar. They just provided a little bit more
specificity. We had already been planning for the threat for
violence, the threat for armed possible people protesting, and
that is what we were planning for.
Now, if you are referring to the Norfolk letter, again, I
just became aware of that--the department was aware of that--24
hours ago. On the 6th or the 5th or the 4th, I was not aware
that memo existed.
Senator Rosen. You are saying that there is a breakdown
between you and the FBI? Because we have rallies, protests, and
things happening in Washington all the time. Could both of you
just maybe give a guess how many do you think are usually with
armed insurrectionists or come heavily armed out of the
hundreds, perhaps thousands of rallies that we see in
Washington through the year?
Mr. Contee. We know of the last three incidents. The first
two MAGA rallies, men and women of the Metropolitan Police
Department recovered firearms from several people who were
attending the demonstrations at the first MAGA rally as well as
the second one. Aside from that, those have been really the
only demonstrations where we have seen individuals coming
armed.
Senator Rosen. Do you think this was an intelligence
breakdown or a resource issue?
Mr. Contee. I think that the intelligence did not make it
where it needed to be in terms of----
Senator Rosen. So you think the FBI did not raise this to
the level they needed to with the Metropolitan Police
Department in your mind?
Mr. Contee. We received it in the form of an email that
came as an alert bulletin at 7 p.m. the day before. Our posture
at the Metropolitan Police Department, again, I think, it is
reflected in our deployment in terms of not just the National
Guard that was deployed, but as well as other officers from
surrounding jurisdictions. That reflected the seriousness that
we took with respect to the threats that we were expecting to
see in this city.
Senator Rosen. Mr. Sund, can you tell me, do you think this
was a resource issue or an intelligence breakdown or something
else? If you will be brief, because this is very important.
Mr. Sund. Yes, ma'am, I will be very brief. It was part of
my introduction. I think it was more than just the Norfolk
letter. I think we need to look at the whole entire
intelligence community and the view they have on some of the
domestic extremists and the effect that they have. I look at
this as an intelligence problem that impacted this event, yes.
Senator Rosen. What information would you have had to have
heard to have raised up the flag to get more resources for the
Capitol Police? Because, thank goodness--I mean, we saw loss of
life, and thank goodness there was not more, but one is too
many. What is your threshold then? What should be the threshold
to protect the Capitol and to protect your officers?
Mr. Sund. I did in advance reach out to the Washington,
D.C., police to coordinate resources, and I did also go to both
the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms to request the National
Guard.
Senator Rosen. Mr. Contee, I think I have five seconds, and
we can take this off the record, but I believe there are some
plans by QAnon for something to happen to the Capitol on March
4th. I want to hear what steps we are taking to protect the
Capitol on March 4th from any more violent extremists. Thank
you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. We will have you talk to him
about that later.
Senator Warner has arrived via video, and I also want to
mention Senator Peters will work with our witnesses for
restroom breaks and the like and let us know so that--we do not
want to take a long break, but I can imagine you need a break
at some point here. Senator Warner.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER
Senator Warner. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you to
the witnesses for appearing today. We have talked a little bit
about the deployment or lack of deployment of the National
Guard. One of the questions, I guess, Mr. Sund, or frankly,
Chief Contee, the fact that the District did not have the
ability to bring the Guard to the table because of, frankly,
the fact that they are not a State and Mayor Bowser is not
treated, I think, in a totally fair fashion in this. This may
be outside your lane, but her inability to bring the Guard to
the table--and actually any of you on the panel can answer
this--that to me is a reflection of the disempowerment of the
District.
On a going-forward basis, at least in terms of being able
to deploy the Guard, shouldn't the Mayor of the District of
Columbia have the ability to do that without all the additional
hurdles they have to go through in terms of Federal checklists?
Mr. Contee. Yes, I absolutely agree with that.
Senator Warner. Does anybody else want to answer on that
question as well?
Mr. Sund. Yes, sir. I am happy to add in. I think we have
an established process for the Capitol Police to make the
request through the Capitol Police Board that is also equally
as effective.
Senator Warner. Again, I feel like the long-term
discrimination against the District--we have seen it in some of
the COVID legislation where they did not receive the same kind
of level of support that other States did. We saw it play out
in real time in terms of on January 6th, hurdles from the
previous administration. I actually have concerns whether the
deployment of the Guard was affirmatively slowed down. I hope
that we in the Congress will--as a supporter of D.C. statehood,
I would like to see that move forward, but even short of that,
trying to ensure that the Mayor has appropriate powers going
forward.
I know there were some questions already raised about the
FBI and whether the intel that came out on the Norfolk FBI
office was ever fully relayed to all of you individuals. But
can you talk more generally about the FBI's responsiveness,
sharing of intelligence? I had a number of conversations. I
called Director Wray on Monday, the 4th, trying to express
concerns that there might be this kind of activity. I never
expected this level of violence. I had a number of
conversations with senior FBI leadership on the 5th through the
6th. I candidly was--I do not think even the full FBI could
have been fully informed of all of what was going to come to
pass, but I felt like the FBI felt that they were in better
shape in terms of intel and preparation than what came to be
the case. I would like each of you to comment on how well you
felt that the FBI did in terms of sharing intelligence and then
coordinating when the actual activities of the 6th played out.
Mr. Sund. I will go ahead and--do you want me to address
that first?
Senator Warner. Yes. I cannot see where you all are, so
every one of you can take a crack at that.
Mr. Sund. I will go ahead and start first. I think the
relationship we have with the FBI is outstanding. I think in my
time with Metropolitan and my time here, we have seen nothing
but the relationship get better. The construct that we have
that is very similar to some of the other major cities is
having the JTTF, being involved with that. The information we
are getting in is good. I think the process and having, like I
said earlier, the wider lens of what information is being
collected, maybe looking at the agencies that are consumers of
their information and what their intelligence collection
requirements are is something that we need to look at. But I
think, getting that information in and then having it processed
and pushed forward in an effective manner is something we need
to look at.
I would say on the 6th, when this started happening,
immediately the FBI, as being a partner of ours, established a
process where with Capitol Police and FBI police, we can begin
to analyze video footage, analyze other evidence to begin going
out and making arrests of the individuals that had created the
insurrection in the Capitol.
Mr. Contee. Yes, I will go next.
Senator Warner. What I want to know is did we get enough
intel beforehand? If we can get the balance of the panel to
respond?
Mr. Contee. Yes, sure. I would echo what Chief Sund just
mentioned. We have had a great working relationship with the
FBI. I think it is a whole-of-intelligence approach, not
specifically just the FBI, when we have something as
significant as what occurred here at the U.S. Capitol. If there
is information, specific information out there that our
Government is responding to, I would think that something of
that nature would rise to the level of more than just an email
that is sent to law enforcement agencies. That should be a
larger, more involved conversation about specifics, not just
some of the unvetted raw information that is out there. We see
a lot of that, but I think it is more of a whole-intelligence
approach, not specifically the FBI. They are great partners to
the Metropolitan Police Department.
Senator Warner. Thank you. I do not know if any other panel
members want to add any comment on that. Let me just say that
my concern is that in Virginia, we have seen these kinds of
antigovernment extremists take to the streets of
Charlottesville in 2017, resulting in the death of Heather
Heyer. We see the same kind of groups come to the forefront on
January 6th. I think this is an ongoing threat to national
security.
I fear at times that while the FBI and others have pointed
this out, that it did not get the level of serious review that
it should have with the prior administration, I have felt at
times that they did not want to take the information that was
coming out of the FBI.
I hope on a going-forward basis we are going to be able to
be more coordinated in terms of taking on antigovernment
extremism, whether it comes from the left or the right. This is
a real ongoing threat. I can tell you from our Intelligence
Committee that we have seen that many of these groups have
connections and ties to antigovernment extremist groups in
Europe, where they have taken a great precedent.
I know my time has expired, Madam Chairman, but this is
something we need more work on. Thank you for holding this
hearing.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Warner.
We look to working with you and the Intelligence Committee on
this.
Next will be Senator Lankford, and after that, Senator
Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Sund, I want to try to
validate something. There is a letter that is in the public
domain at this point that is an eight-page letter that was
written to Speaker Pelosi that is attributed to you to try to
explain the events of that day. Are you familiar with that
letter in the public domain? is it accurate?
Mr. Sund. Yes, it is sir.
Senator Lankford. So in the letter itself, you described
several things in this and the details and the timeline on it.
Can you tell me why you wrote this letter to Speaker Pelosi?
What was the purpose of the letter?
Mr. Sund. I feel at the time I resigned, I had limited
communications with my department. I know my department was
getting ready to go and testify at some of the initial
committee hearings. I think that she had called for my
resignation without full understanding of what we had prepared
for, what we had gone through. I think she deserved to read,
firsthand what we had prepared for and what I dealt with for
the 6th.
Senator Lankford. OK. That is helpful. You had said in
this, you talked several times about thousands of well-
coordinated, well-equipped violent criminals and described
them, with climbing gear and all the things that you have also
testified here. You also mentioned this letter about the pipe
bombs that were located, that the first word will come at 12:52
p.m. that a pipe bomb had been located at the Republican
National Committee headquarters. How was that located? Who
found it? Why was that particular moment the moment that it was
found?
Mr. Sund. I do not know why that was the particular moment
that it was found. I believe it was an employee of the
Republican National Committee that had located it in the rear
of the building that had called it into Capitol Police
headquarters.
Senator Lankford. You had mentioned before that you thought
this was part of the coordination, that there were several that
were out there that would take away resources at that exact
moment, but there is no way to know that they would find it at
that exact moment. I am glad they did find it. They found
another one at the Democrat headquarters as well at 1:50 p.m.,
and you document that as well. But you had to send quite a few
individuals to be able to go to the RNC and the DNC to be able
to go deal with those explosives that were planted there. Is
that correct?
Mr. Sund. That is correct. For your information, the RNC
pipe bomb, that was one that was really run by Capitol Police.
The DNC, Metropolitan ended up taking that and running that so
we could run two concurrently. That resulted in the evacuation
of two congressional buildings, the Cannon House Office
Building as well as one of the Library of Congress buildings.
It took extensive resources.
Senator Lankford. The assault on the Capitol is not what
caused the evacuation of those buildings. The discovery of
those pipe bombs is what caused the evacuation of those
buildings.
Mr. Sund. That is correct, sir.
Senator Lankford. There has been quite a bit of
conversation today and quite a few members here that have
talked about the National Guard and the length of time that it
took to be able to go through the bureaucratic process to be
able to get them deployed. I do think that needs to be
shortened obviously in a deployment structure and the
complexity of the bureaucracy here. But it seems to be a
misunderstanding on this dais with some individuals describing
the National Guard as if they are the riot police that can
automatically be called out.
Were you expecting them to be like a rapid response special
weapons and tactics (SWAT) team at this point? What is a
typical response from the National Guard to be able to call
them out when they are not currently positioned?
Mr. Sund. I believe the typical response once they are
approved is approximately two hours.
Senator Lankford. OK. But then the approval process is
obviously multiple hours to do that or multiple days to do
that. You had started that process several days before in
making some requests.
Mr. Sund. That is correct. As far as the process, my
initial request was over to Mr. Irving. It was actually an in-
person request on the 4th. It was not until the evening of the
4th that I talked to General Walker that he informed me that,
if needed, because Mr. Stenger wanted me to ask them if they
can lean forward, they can get 125, if needed in a fairly quick
fashion, once approved. So that is what led into January 6th,
when we made the initial request at 1:09 p.m.
Senator Lankford. But that 125 individuals from the
National Guard that were prepared to be able to move faster
because they were in streets and different places dealing with
traffic duty at that point, you had already been informed that
the city of Washington, D.C., and the Mayor's office had made a
request to DOD and DOD had approved it, that none of them would
be armed, none of them would have heavy gear on. There would be
no military vehicles that would be available to them. They had
to use unmarked vans and other Government vans. There would be
no helicopters that would be used. Those were prohibited that
day for those 125 individuals that were already on the street.
Is that correct?
Mr. Sund. Just for correction, at the time, no, I did not
know that was the restrictions being placed on them. Two, when
I talked to General Walker the evening of the 4th, which was
Monday evening, the 125 he was going to give us were 125 that
were doing COVID relief for the District of Columbia, not
assigned to the traffic post.
Senator Lankford. OK. The individuals that were assigned to
traffic duty had no weapons, had no military vehicles to move,
had no overhead visual on anything. That had all been requested
no from the city of Washington D.C.. Then for the other
individuals that could be assigned to use rapid force, those
were folks that were currently doing COVID duty. You had no
SWAT team. This description is very interesting to me around
this dais that people think that suddenly the National Guard
just bursts in and is ready to go on that. That is not what the
National Guard is pre-positioned to do.
Mr. Sund. That is correct. Anytime we have requested the
National Guard, they have been in an unarmed fashion. I was
looking for them to help support the perimeter that we had
established.
Senator Lankford. OK. There has been some concern now. I
have talked to some of the officers here, and there has
obviously been some conversation around this dais as well about
the rules of engagement and about training and authorization.
There was not training for what to do if a mass group actually
comes through the door and tries to burst through, whether it
is an insurrection type event, whether it is just a mob that
has gone crazy and whatever it may be, or a protest that gets
out of hand, to be able to burst through the door. There was no
clarity for the officers inside the building on their rules of
engagement once they actually came to the building. They
literally, my impression is, had to make it up on their own,
and they determined their stand was going to be where the
members and the staff were located. That was going to be their
stand to start using lethal force. I have a couple questions
for that.
At this point now--and I understand hindsight is 20/20--is
there a need for much greater less-than-lethal force capability
on officers at the time or available to officers at a time that
they have less-than-lethal capabilities and clear rules of
engagement of what to if you have a group of individuals come
into the building unauthorized?
Mr. Sund. So just for a little clarification, we do train
for people trying to get into the building. We do not train
for, what I said, an insurrection of thousands of people.
Senator Lankford. Right.
Mr. Sund. Our officers do have less lethal capability that
they carry with them. With hindsight being what it is from
January 6th, absolutely, I think there needs to be additional
training and additional equipment to consider this type of
attack in the future.
Senator Lankford. The challenge is we all watched this
summer--in fact, this Committee on Homeland Security had a
hearing on the assaults on a Federal courthouse in Portland and
went through and all of us saw for a month individuals just
attack that courthouse day after day after day. We saw the
techniques that were used. Some of those same techniques were
used by individuals that came in here. I am not saying it was
the same individuals, but some of those same techniques of
trying to be able to work to the fence, to be able to find it,
to be able to find a way to be able to attack officers.
The challenge is that we saw that this was rising, I guess,
that people were watching on TV people attacking a Federal
institution all summer long. It is a follow-up that we are
going to have to do in the days ahead of how to be able to get
less-than-lethal capability and to find ways to be able to stop
any kind of assault of a number of individuals to be able to
come on the Capitol.
I appreciate your service. I appreciate very much the
officers that continue to be able to serve, because they have
not had a gap. They have not had a break since that time
period. I know you still interact with them; at least I hope
you do.
Mr. Sund. I certainly do.
Senator Lankford. I would encourage you to pass on from us
our gratitude. We are all looking at this as a hindsight, 20/
20, saying, ``Why couldn't you read the tea leaves at this
particular scrap of intelligence that came in the night
before?'' None of us saw it at this level. We are grateful for
the service they continue to do, and let us find the lessons we
can learn.
Mr. Sund. Thank you very much, sir. I know they appreciate
your support as well as the support of Congress. They are a
hell of a police agency.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
Next, thank you for your patience, Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. My pleasure. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chief Contee, as a former Governor of the First State of
Delaware for eight years, I recall numerous instances in which
I called on the Delaware National Guard in emergencies. There
could have been the floods, blizzards, ice storms, drought, you
name it--a lot more. I know the importance of and the value of
work that our citizen soldiers have done for decades in the
First State and other States around the country.
As we have learned, in contrast to every other States'
National Guard in the country, the D.C. National Guard operates
differently. I am convinced if someone had been able to
activate the D.C. National Guard and have 1,000 or 2,000
guardsmen and--women deployed at the Capitol in a timely way on
the 6th of January, this death and destruction would not have
occurred.
Unlike the 50 States that we have, the leader of the
District of Columbia is not empowered to activate the D.C.
National Guard during an emergency. That is one of the reasons
why I have worked for years with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes
Norton in support of legislation to admit Washington, D.C., as
our 51st State and to provide equal rights to the Americans who
make this community of over 700,000 people their home.
Here is the question. Chief Contee, in your testimony, you
highlight that a request for D.C. National Guard assistance at
the U.S. Capitol on January 6th would have had to have been
made by the U.S. Capitol Police with the consent of the U.S.
Department of Defense. Can you just take a minute to explain
that process and why Mayor Bowser is not able to request D.C.
National Guard assistance when Federal installations and
property, as well as human lives, are threatened in the
District that she leads? Please, go ahead.
Mr. Contee. Yes, thank you for the question. Yes, so the
Mayor does not have full authority over the National Guard to
include their activation or deployment. We make a request as
the District of Columbia. We make a request; we send that to
the Federal Government. Ultimately, the Secretary of the Army
receives that request. There is a whole approval process that
that request has to go through in order for National Guard
resources to be deployed to the District of Columbia, unlike
Governors in other States who are able to activate their
National Guard without going through those approval processes
and receiving approval from the highest level of the Federal
Government. That just does not have to take place in other
States, so a real hindrance to us in terms of our response and
the ability to call them up.
Senator Carper. Thanks. Thanks for that response. Could you
just take a minute to share with us your thoughts on whether
having the D.C. National Guard under the command of the Mayor
or even a Governor of a neighboring State might help the D.C.
Metropolitan Police in coordinating with Federal authorities to
better protect the city and its citizens, and along with
Federal installations during the assault like the one we
experienced on January the 6th?
Mr. Contee. Yes, I think we certainly should. We knew even
on that day, on January 6th, prior to any movement of the
National Guard from the assignments that they have been given,
the traffic posts, again, that required approval at the highest
levels of the Federal Government, to include the Secretary of
the Army, the Secretary of Defense, in order to just move the
National Guard or change of mission, in essence. So, yes, I
think that that should certainly be something that falls under
the Mayor's authority.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks so much.
A question, if I could, for Mr. Sund. In your testimony,
you state that the events of January 6th were not the result of
poor planning on behalf of the U.S. Capitol Police but, rather,
a lack of actual intelligence that would have allowed the
Capitol Police to properly prepare.
As I was looking through Mr. Stenger's testimony, former
Sergeant at Arms for the U.S. Senate, he states, and I want to
quote, he says, ``The chain of information and resources is
paramount for success.'' That is his quote. I strongly agree
with that statement.
Mr. Sund, what went wrong leading up to January 6th with
regard to gathering and sharing actual intelligence? Why do you
think the likelihood of a truly devastating attack was so badly
underestimated? Mr. Sund.
Mr. Sund. I think as you start to hear from some of the
Federal agencies on the investigations that are currently going
on, where they are finding evidence that this was a coordinated
attack that had been coordinated among numerous States for some
time in advance of this, that is the information that would
have been extremely helpful to us, for them to detect some type
of level of coordination that would have given us the
indication that we are going to see more than just ``may become
violent,'' you know, ``may be inclined to violence'' type of
preparations. You look at it now, knowing what occurred, you
see what type of resources were brought to bear around the
Capitol. That type of information could have given us
sufficient advanced warning to plan for more of an attack such
as what we saw.
Senator Carper. The great Paul Newman movie ``Cool Hand
Luke,'' has a line that probably a lot of people, certainly in
my generation, remember: ``What we have here as a failure to
communicate.'' That was right at the end of the film. ``What we
have here is a failure to communicate.''
Did we have a failure to communicate here? I am not one who
is crazy about pointing fingers and assigning blame, but to
whom do we assign that failure to communicate?
Mr. Sund. I believe that question is for me, sir. What I
look at is, we have a process for communications, and being a
consumer of intelligence, I look at it more of, I think there
is a failure of having a wide enough lens to look at what are
the current threats that we are facing in the Nation now from
some of the domestic extremists. I think the communications
processes are there. They need to be worked on a little bit,
but I think the intelligence community needs to broaden its
aperture on what information it collects.
Senator Carper. We now know in retrospect that the rioters
on January 6th did not begin on January the 5th, the 4th, or
the 3rd. It started weeks before and was fomented, encouraged,
as we now know, by, among others, our President. Somehow all of
that work and all the intelligence that was gathered by the FBI
and Homeland Security never found its way to the people who
right here in D.C. could have used it the most to have avoided
the tragedy of January 6th.
Thank you. Our thanks particularly to the officers at the
U.S. Capitol Police and others who joined them in trying to
protect us in this Capitol on that sad day.
Chairman Peters. I know we have several members ready to
go, and we want you to go as quickly as possible, but there has
been a request from our witnesses, who have been here a long
time, if we could give them a five-minute break, and then we
will reconvene in five minutes with additional questions. We
will recess for five minutes.
[Recess.]
We are going to bring this hearing back to the order. Get
our remote folks. It is good to see you on remote. Mr. Sund,
welcome back.
Senator Merkley, you are up for questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you to our witnesses.
Mr. Sund, on January 4th, MPD arrested the leader of the
Proud Boys for destruction of property and possessing high-
capacity firearm magazines, and on the following day, on
January 5th, the FBI issued a report through the Joint
Terrorism Task Force, which includes going to the U.S. Capitol
Police, and that report noted that on far-right media the
threats included things such as, the comments such as, ``Be
ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors
being kicked in, blood from their Black Lives Matter (BLM) and
Antifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent, stop calling
this a march or a rally or a protest. Go there ready for war.
We get our President or we die. Nothing else will achieve this
goal.''
Did you get that FBI intelligence report?
Mr. Sund. I addressed that right when we started. The
United States Capitol Police Department did get that report. I
was just advised of that in the last 24 hours. That report made
it from the Joint Terrorism Task Force over to our Intelligence
Bureau, over to a sergeant there, and ceased moving forward at
that point. No leadership, myself included, over at Capitol
Police was made aware of that at the time of the event.
Senator Merkley. You have referred in your testimony to the
individual who is the head, John Donahue, the Director of
Intelligence on the U.S. Capitol Police. Did he receive that
report, but he did not pass it on to you as head of the USCP?
Mr. Sund. Again, I have no knowledge that he received that
report. I have been told it went over to a official with the
rank of sergeant and did not move any farther from there.
Senator Merkley. OK. That is very concerning. Were there
not procedures for the head of intelligence on the U.S. Capitol
Police to get the intelligence report, to review it, especially
when there were significant other indications of potential
violence, and make sure that you as the leader had that
knowledge on which to develop additional plans, if additional
plans were needed?
Mr. Sund. I am sure that is something that they are looking
at in their current after-action. Yes, there is a process for
it, but, again, as I mentioned before, that was raw
intelligence that was coming in. Again, taken in consideration
with everything else, none of the other intelligence was
showing that we are looking at this type of a broad
insurrectionist type of a event with thousands of armed,
coordinated individuals.
Senator Merkley. I know you are saying that folks are
looking at that now, but my question was, did you have a
procedure for important intelligence to be brought directly to
your attention? Did that system break down, and that is why you
did not see the warnings about blood being spilled, get
violent, be ready to come and die?
Mr. Sund. Yes, there is a process in place to make sure
that critical, important information is brought up to
leadership. Again, that was something that would have gone
through the development and the analysis of that information.
Senator Merkley. OK. So you are saying the intelligence
side of U.S. Capitol Police failed to get that into your hands.
Let me turn to rules of engagement. Officers are out there,
and there was an expanded perimeter, which you have referred
to, and you have those kinds of perimeter fence that looked
like bike racks, and in a normal situation, those tell peaceful
protesters this is where you stop.
Was there any sort of discussion or training about what to
do if protesters started picking those things up and opening
holes in that perimeter? What were the rules of engagement? If
I am a police officer that day on the line for the Capitol
Police, was I trained? What do I do when those perimeter fences
are breached? Do I use spray? Do I use a stun gun? Do I use
tear gas? Do I have a clear sense of exactly how I am supposed
to respond?
Mr. Sund. Yes, there are rules of engagement. There is a
use-of-force policy, and there is also civil disobedience unit
training that has to do with when you have a noncompliant
group, how you deal with noncompliance and gaining compliance,
which would include hand control techniques, the application of
chemical spray, and then impact weapons.
Senator Merkley. On that day, you issued rules of
engagement that included what, specifically? I am an officer.
What was I supposed to do if those barricades were breached?
Mr. Sund. There are rules of engagement that exist. They
were not issued just that day. They existed.
Senator Merkley. They do not vary from event to event based
on threat analysis?
Mr. Sund. No, sir.
Senator Merkley. That perimeter you said got larger, which
meant police officers were spread out over a larger area. Once
it was breached, what are the directions to the police on the
team to be able to retreat to a defensible point?
Mr. Sund. What we had is we had what is called an
``incident command system'' established. You have an incident
command for both the exterior, the resources on the exterior of
the building that would provide those officers, those CDU
units, with specific directions on where to go, what is the
next step, if you are going to retreat up to the upper west
terrace, which I believe which is what they were told to do, as
well as an incident command system inside the building handling
the joint session and activities going on inside.
Senator Merkley. I am out on the plaza, and the crowd
swarms past me. I have an assigned place to go to retreat to
that is defensible?
Mr. Sund. The incident commander would be providing
direction to people in the field on where to retreat to make
the next stand.
Senator Merkley. So no advance information. How do you
avoid the situation of those who are guarding a door, closing
and locking the door and leaving police officers stranded
outside of that locked perimeter?
Mr. Sund. So your question, how do you prevent that? Is
that what you are saying?
Senator Merkley. How do you prevent that? If you have folks
who are guarding a door, and protesters are trying to get
through it so they are trying to lock that and prevent it, and
there is not a pre-plan for how to deal with officers who are
stranded outside of those doors, how is that handled? Do you
have drills on that? Do you have set instructions on that?
Mr. Sund. Again, that is something I would look for the
onsite official, the onsite incident commander, to provide
those officers with directions where to relocate to.
Senator Merkley. OK. Let me put it this way: Have you ever
held a drill to respond to this situation where a crowd pushes
past the exterior barricades?
Mr. Sund. Not this level of a situation, no, sir.
Senator Merkley. To what level have you had such drills?
Mr. Sund. We have done various exercises with people,
activities on the grounds, during civil disobedience training,
how to handle riotous groups----
Senator Merkley. OK. Thank you. I am going to turn--I just
have seconds left--to our former Sergeant of Arms for the
Senate, Mr. Stenger. At the time that we were in the Senate
chamber and the protesters, the rioters, reached the perimeter
of the Senate, there was a very quick rush to try to lock the
doors, and there were people searching for how do you lock
these, and there are many entrances on the balcony.
Has there ever been any sort of a drill with the Sergeant
of Arms team or in partnership with the Capitol Police on how
to secure the doors to the chamber as a last point of defense?
Mr. Stenger. Yes, sir. At least once a year, they hold a
chamber action drill, where they would work together with the
Capitol Police, with the doorkeepers, to do a lockdown so they
know when they should lock down.
Senator Merkley. That is done as an actual drill, where
people have to run, get the keys, lock the doors. They know
what doors they are supposed to guard. Are they supposed to
guard them from the inside or from the outside and so forth?
Mr. Stenger. Yes, sir.
Senator Merkley. When was the last such drill of that
nature conducted?
Mr. Stenger. I would have to go back and check, but we try
and do it once a year.
Senator Merkley. OK. I think I am out of time, and thank
you very much to the Chairman.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Scott, you are recognized.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman. First off, I want to
thank everybody for your hard work. We have National Guard up
here. We have had them, I guess, since around the 6th. Can you
tell us how you made the decision to bring the National Guard
here, each of you, to the extent you are involved, or if you
were not involved, how the decision was made? The National
Guard presence we have here, not as a result of the riot, but
the National Guard that has put up the fencing and all that.
Mr. Sund. OK. So that began to be developed the evening of
the 6th. When we made the request, we got the National Guard
in, we started looking to the future, what was going to be
next. We started talking about bringing in the first section of
global fencing, which basically went right around Capitol
Square, which is Constitution, Independence, First to First. We
got that in place.
Then we started looking at what necessary National Guard
resources working with the National Guard representative, so
that was developed with Capitol Police working with, I believe,
the Sergeant at Arms at the time, in the evening, going into
the 7th that we developed that.
Senator Scott. OK. Were you the only one involved or were
the Sergeant at Arms involved?
Mr. Sund. I believe so. I would have to go back and pull
that information. We were working on a number of different
aspects of it at the time, but I had my general counsel as well
as our operations people working on the request and the
coordination with the National Guard.
Senator Scott. What was the purpose of the original--the
National Guard that came and put up the fencing, what was the
rationale? What was the threat assessment?
Mr. Sund. Just to make sure I understand, you are talking
about the National Guard that came on the 6th?
Senator Scott. No; the presence that stayed after.
Mr. Sund. Oh, the one that stayed after. So what was the
threat assessment?
Senator Scott. What was the threat assessment, and why was
it set up that they would be here for, it seems like now months
on end?
Mr. Sund. Well, beyond the 8th--again, my departure date
was the 8th, so the information I have is up until the 8th. It
was based--they were putting them in place based on the mass
insurrection that we had on the 6th. I was not aware of any
additional intelligence at that point. They were just concerned
about possible violent extremists regrouping and staging
another attack on the Capitol.
Senator Scott. You have not seen anything that would give
us a threat assessment now that we have a concern that we need
to have the National Guard presence? It does not mean there is
not some, but you have not seen anything?
Mr. Sund. No, sir. I have been really not in that
environment since the 8th.
Senator Scott. OK. Any of the others that are here to
testify, do you have any threat assessment you have seen that
there is a reason that we have the National Guard here today?
Is that a no from everybody? No one has any idea why we
have the National Guard here?
Mr. Contee. This is Chief Contee. Yes, my guess is in
response to all of the things that have happened, but to your
question specifically about specific intelligence, I have not
personally seen anything that would suggest that.
Senator Scott. Are you involved in the decision at all of
why the National Guard is here?
Mr. Contee. No, sir. I am not.
Senator Scott. They have not shared any threat assessment
with you at all with regard to why the National Guard is here?
Mr. Contee. That has not been shared with me, no.
Senator Scott. Does that surprise you?
Mr. Contee. I cannot say that I am really surprised. Quite
frankly, we have talked about intelligence in terms of what we
expect to see in the city. There are several law enforcement
calls that take place between the Metropolitan Police
Department and other Federal partners. But, again, the Capitol
Police and that structure there, it is something that they are
not beholden to the Mayor of the District of Columbia or
anything like that.
We exchanged information that we have, but, again, I just
have not seen anything specifically from them that suggests the
fence still being the way that it is now. I should add also,
sir, that, obviously, I think that there needs to be a
reimagining of the security posture of it. Something certainly
should be there, but I am not exactly sure if the answer to
that is razor wire and the deployment that we currently see.
Senator Scott. Then, former Sergeant at Arms, you do not
have any reason--no one has given you any--you have not seen
any information that would suggest that we have a threat, an
imminent threat that we need the National Guard here?
Mr. Stenger. I have not.
Mr. Irving. I have not either. I resigned on the 7th and
have been gone since, so I have no information.
Senator Scott. OK. So who would be making the decision that
the National Guard needs to be here then? Where would the
threat assessment come from? Does anybody know?
Mr. Sund. I would maybe look at the current leadership over
at maybe the Capitol Police in conjunction with the current
Sergeant at Arms.
Senator Scott. OK. So it would be the head of Capitol
Police and the city and the Acting Sergeant at Arms?
Mr. Sund. That is correct, to give you the current
information on that.
Senator Scott. Would they coordinate with the Metropolitan
Police?
Mr. Sund. If there was intelligence that would indicate the
need for such activity, it would usually be shared with our
partner. Our local law enforcement would share our perimeter
and our borders.
Senator Scott. If there was a threat out there, would there
be some public information that they would put out normally?
Mr. Sund. Again, that all has to do with the nature of the
threat, the threat, the classification level of the threat.
But, again, that would be shared with law enforcement within
the District of Columbia through the JTTF, as well as the
executive board for the JTTF.
Senator Scott. I am flabbergasted that--not that you do not
know now, but that there is no public information about why we
have all these National Guards here. I mean, does that surprise
you?
Mr. Sund. It is a significant security deployment. Again, I
believe it is based on the facts of what they have seen,
hindsight being what it is. It is the facts of what occurred on
January 6th, this unprecedented insurrection.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Hassan, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of
the witnesses for being here today. I especially want to take a
moment to acknowledge the heroism of the officers of the U.S.
Capitol Police, law enforcement, and other employees of the
Capitol who bravely worked to protect our democracy on January
6th and who have done so much work to restore our Capitol since
that day.
I also want to thank all of the families of our law
enforcement and Capitol Hill staff for what they went through
watching this unfold in real time.
I want to start with a question to Chief Contee, if I
could. Chief, Washington, D.C., is obviously no stranger to
large assemblies and protests. What is the standard process for
protests in Washington, D.C., when it comes to interagency
coordination and information sharing? Following the events of
January 6th, what recommendations do you have for improving
coordination and information sharing?
Mr. Contee. Thank you for that question. There are several
discussions, meetings that take place between the municipal
police department as well as our Federal partners. We
oftentimes have coordination calls with the National Park
Service (NPS) simply because in a lot of the Federal lands,
they authorize the permits for the Federal land. There is
coordination that has to happen there between the Metropolitan
Police Department, U.S. Park Police (USPP), U.S. Capitol
Police, U.S. Secret Service. With respect to the intelligence,
again, our partners from the FBI, they are often part of those
discussions.
I think that the thing kind of going forward that certainly
needs to be looked at with respect to specific intelligence
that has been outlined throughout some of the testimony today,
when there is specific information that warrants us to perhaps
posture differently, our notification system needs to be
different.
The JTTF distribution list that we have is not something
that is a monitored list, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
that would generate an immediate response to that. When those
communications are sent out, there are staff members who at
some point will get to that information, but I think that,
again, that has been laid out.
When we are talking about something of this magnitude that
could potentially happen and ultimately did happen in our city,
it should posture us to move differently, perhaps with
convening phone calls immediately, and not counting on an email
or something making it through the chain to the levels that it
needs to make for other decisions to be made.
Senator Hassan. Thank you for that answer. One of the
things I would observe is sometimes ahead of events like these,
just scheduling ongoing check-ins with leadership at all of the
agencies that need to coordinate can have the effect of sharing
information in real time.
I want to move to a question to Mr. Stenger, Mr. Irving,
and Mr. Sund. The Secretary of Homeland Security has the
authority to designate events with national and international
significance as National Special Security Events. But that did
not happen for January 6th, even given the threat information
readily available ahead of time. Designated events are eligible
for expanded Federal support related to the security of the
events.
Prior to January 6th, did anyone from the Department of
Homeland Security contact you about a potential National
Special Security Event designation? We will start with you, Mr.
Sund, and then move to the others.
Mr. Sund. Thank you, ma'am. No, I am not aware of anybody
from DHS reaching out and requesting, that if we want to follow
up, if this wanted to be a National Special Security Event, or
if we were going to request that to be, or if they were going
to identify and designate what they call a C or a special event
rating to the event. No, I am not aware.
Senator Hassan. Thank you.
Mr. Stenger and Mr. Irving.
Mr. Stenger. No one contacted me.
Senator Hassan. Thank you.
Mr. Irving. The same with me, Senator. No contact with me
or my office.
Senator Hassan. Thank you for those answers. I look forward
to following up with the Department of Homeland Security about
this during the next hearing on this topic.
Mr. Sund, my last question. The officers of the Capitol
Police work each and every day to keep the U.S. Capitol safe
and secure. We are all grateful for the brave work of the U.S.
Capitol Police officers on January 6th. Tragically, the law
enforcement community has now lost two officers to suicide
since January 6th as a result of the insurrection and the
events then. My thoughts and I am sure the thoughts of all of
us here today are with the families of MPD Officer Jeffrey
Smith and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood.
Mr. Sund, what mental health resources are currently
available to the United States Capitol Police officers, and are
these resources sufficient?
Mr. Sund. The department has brought in significant mental
health resources, and I certainly do appreciate your
recognition of that. I have talked to a number of officers who
have definitely gone through the battle and feel that they are
feeling a lot of trauma from it. But I know the Chief of
Police, the Acting Chief, has brought in significant resources.
We had the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), but they have
brought in a number of outside contractors that have gotten a
very good response. I think there is a lot of mental health
resources available, and I know a number of officers are taking
advantage of it, which I am happy to see.
Senator Hassan. So am I, and I would encourage all officers
who feel that they could benefit from counseling to reach out
for it. I would certainly encourage--and I am sure my
colleagues here would, too--that all leadership in law
enforcement reach out to us if they feel the resources are
strained or need bolstering in some way.
Thank you all for your service. Thank you very much for
your testimony and for being here today.
To the Chairs and Ranking Members of our respective
Committees, thank you so much for organizing this hearing.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hassan.
The Chair now recognizes Senator Hawley for his questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by
saying a special thank you and a special acknowledgment to
Captain Mendoza who shared her testimony earlier today, earlier
this morning. Captain Mendoza is a native of Missouri and an
alumni of Park University, if memory serves. I just want to say
to her, I want to thank her for being here today, but also for
her incredible bravery and courage on January 6th. On behalf of
the entire State of Missouri, I want to say thank you for what
you have done. Thank you for what you represent. I also want to
take that opportunity to say again now, as I said on the night
of that terrible day, thank you to all of the law enforcement
from all of our various branches who responded in this dire
emergency to face these criminal rioters, these violent
criminals, to repulse them from the Capitol and to secure this
space so that the work of Congress could continue. Thank you
and a special thanks to Captain Mendoza from the State of
Missouri.
Mr. Sund, if I could just return to the question about the
National Guard activation, I am a little bit confused about the
timeline here, and I want to ask you and Mr. Irving some
questions just so I can get this clear in my own head.
I am looking at your written testimony. You testified that
you spoke with Mr. Irving at 1:09 p.m.--actually both of the
Sergeants at Arms at 1:09 p.m. Now, I understand there is a
little bit of dispute about the timeline here, but you do say
that Mr. Irving advised you that he needed to run it--namely,
the request for the National Guard--he needed to run it up the
chain of command. Have I got that right?
Mr. Sund. That is correct, sir.
Senator Hawley. OK. Mr. Irving, could I just ask you, when
Mr. Sund says that you told him you needed to run it up the
chain of command, to whom were you referring there?
Mr. Irving. Senator, I do not recall a phone call at 1:09
p.m. when I was on the floor of the House during the Electoral
College session. My phone records do not reflect a telephone
call at that time. Had I received a call at that time, I had
everyone with me. I had Mr. Stenger, leadership. We would have
approved it immediately. I have no recollection of that call,
and neither do I have a record of it.
Senator Hawley. You say, I think, that you spoke with Mr.
Sund later at approximately 1:30 p.m. Is that right?
Mr. Irving. That is correct, after I left the floor, and on
that call he had indicated to me that conditions were
deteriorating and that he might be making a request at a later
time.
Senator Hawley. OK. Did you then say that you needed to run
it up the chain of command or words to that effect?
Mr. Irving. No, not to my recollection. I notified
leadership, and I went to Michael Stenger's office to receive
updates from Mr. Sund as to conditions outside and to determine
whether he needed to make a request or not. When the request
was made shortly after 2 p.m., we approved it.
Senator Hawley. When you say ``we,'' who is ``we''? ``We
approved it.''
Mr. Irving. House and Senate leadership staff were in
Michael Stenger's office at the time and agreed.
Senator Hawley. And so you did not consult congressional
leadership. You were not waiting at any point for input from
congressional leadership. Is that your testimony, Mr. Irving?
Have I got that right?
Mr. Irving. Yes. I advised them, as we would do with many
security protocols.
Senator Hawley. But you were not waiting for them at any
point. There was no delay, you are saying, in getting National
Guard requests because you did not at any point actually wait
for the input of the Speaker or the Majority Leader or anybody
else?
Mr. Irving. No, absolutely not.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Sund, is that your recollection?
Mr. Sund. My recollection was at 1:09 p.m. while I was
sitting in the command center watching things rapidly
deteriorate, I made a phone call. The phone call was made in
the presence of, I believe, both my Assistant Chiefs and
possibly my General Counsel, at which time I made the initial
request that we need to activate the National Guard; the
situation is bad on the west front. I followed up at 1:22 p.m.
to check on the status of the request.
Senator Hawley. OK. One of the things I am trying to get
clear on here is who would constitute the chain of command.
Now, it sounds like Mr. Irving is saying that he actually never
made that statement and he did not consult anybody else. I
mean, my understanding is from the statute, 2 U.S.C. Chapter
29, Section 1970, that in an emergency situation--and I would
think that this would qualify--that the Capitol Police Board
does not have to consult with Members of the Senate or House
leadership in order to make a request for deployment of the
National Guard or request of other executive departments and
executive agencies. It would seem strange to me that there was
any talk about a chain of command that would involve anybody
other than the Capitol Police Board given the statute. But
there seems to be some confusion about the basic facts and who
asked for what, when.
Let me just ask you this, Mr. Sund: On Monday, January the
4th, you have testified that you approached the House and
Senate Sergeant at Arms to request the assistance of the
National Guard, and Mr. Irving stated that he was concerned
about the optics of having the Guard deployed. Is that right?
Am I remembering that correctly?
Mr. Sund. That is correct, sir. On the 4th, it actually was
not a phone call. It was an in-person visit over to his office
where I went in and requested the National Guard.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Irving, could you just clarify? When
you used the term ``optics''--and maybe your recollection is
you did not, so maybe you could speak to that--did you talk
about being concerned about the optics of the National Guard?
Then could you just elaborate on what you meant by that? Again,
this is Monday, January 4th now.
Mr. Irving. Yes, Monday, January 4th, Senator, safety was
always the deciding factor when making security plans, and the
issue on the table was whether the intelligence warranted
troops at the Capitol. The conversation with Mr. Sund was not--
I did not take it as a request. He was merely informing me that
he had received an offer from the National Guard. Then when we
included Mr. Stenger, the three of us discussed the specific
issue as to whether the intelligence warranted the troops, and
the answer was no. It was a collective answer, no. Then Mr.
Stenger put forth his recommendation to have them on standby.
My recollection was Mr. Sund was very satisfied with that. In
fact, he briefed the following day that he was satisfied, and I
heard no concern anytime thereafter.
Senator Hawley. Were you concerned that this use of the
word ``optics,'' the appearance, what it would look like to
have the Guard--this is what Mr. Sund has testified was a
concern on January 4th, that there was a reluctance to request
assistance because of the appearance. Was there something that
you were--what is the appearance that you were concerned about,
Mr. Irving, if indeed, you were? Were you concerned that having
the Guard present would look like it was too militarized? Were
you concerned about the criticism of the Guard being deployed
in Washington during rioting earlier this summer, the summer of
2020? Just give us some insight into your thinking there, as
you recall it.
Mr. Irving. Senator, I was not concerned about appearance
whatsoever. It was all about safety and security. Any reference
to appearance would have been related to appropriate use of
force, display of force, and ultimately the question on the
table when we looked at any security asset is: Does the
intelligence warrant it? Does the security plan match with the
intelligence? Again, the collective answer was yes.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask one final
question?
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes.
Senator Hawley. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you.
Speaker Pelosi has asked retired Lieutenant General Russel
Honore to lead an immediate review of Capitol security in light
of the attack. The general has said that the leadership of the
Capitol Police--that would be you, Mr. Sund--and both of you
gentlemen, the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms. He has
criticized you for, and I am quoting now, ``the appearance of
complicity during the attack,'' and also said that you
``potentially undertook complicit actions''--those are his
words--during the attack.
Mr. Sund, where you complicit in this attack on January
6th?
Mr. Sund. Absolutely not, sir. I have heard those comments
as well, and I think it is disrespectful to myself and to the
members of the Capitol Police Department.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Stenger, were you complicit in the
attacks on January 6th? Mr. Stenger.
Mr. Stenger. Oh.
Senator Hawley. Were you complicit to the attacks on
January 6th?
Mr. Irving. He is asking you.
[No audible response.]
Senator Hawley. Mr. Irving, were you complicit in the
attacks on January 6th?
Mr. Irving. Absolutely not, Senator.
Senator Hawley. Yes, of course none of you were. There is
absolutely no evidence to that effect. Mr. Sund, I think your
comments are appropriately taken. To allege that you, any of
you, were complicit in this violent mob attack on this building
I think is not only extremely disrespectful, it is really quite
shocking, and this person has no business leading any security
review related to the events of January 6th.
Thank you for your indulgence, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
Next, a new member of both Committees, Senator Padilla.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Madam Chair.
There have been a lot of questions--I have been popping in
and out from multiple Committees, but I understand there have
been a lot of questions already about intelligence, what was
known, what was assessed, what was shared, et cetera, and
differing opinions. I will try not to be too repetitive.
First, a quick question for Chief Sund and the two Sergeant
at Arms. I imagine, like most people, you saw most, if not all,
of the House impeachment managers' presentations before the
U.S. Senate, as they sort of laid out the case, took the
impeachment question aside, we know how that was resolved, but
in terms of how January 6th did not just happen, but the lead-
up to January 6th. Is there anything from that presentation
that you would disagree with?
Mr. Sund. To make sure I understand, the video I watched
and all the information the video that was portrayed is all
accurate video. As far as, any of the other commentary
associated with the video, I cannot say I watched every single
bit of it, but I can tell you a lot of that video was video
from the United States Capitol Police, and it was all accurate.
Senator Padilla. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Stenger, Mr. Irving, same question.
Mr. Stenger. Yes, the video I saw certainly reflected what
I could see from my window the day of January 6th.
Mr. Irving. From my perspective, Senator, I have not
diagnosed why the attack occurred. At the time we left all
information to the intelligence agencies that we had at the
time, and I would say now to leave it to the after-action
investigations to make determinations.
Senator Padilla. OK. A question for Chief Sund
specifically. Now, there is an Intelligence Division within the
department. Correct?
Mr. Sund. Yes, sir.
Senator Padilla. OK. Now, having read your letter to
Speaker Pelosi, you make reference to events on both November
14 as well as December 12 that you had sort of comparable
intelligence in terms of risk assessments, threat assessments
in the events of November 14 and December 12, not leading into
anything near what happened on January 6th. Is that a correct
interpretation of your letter?
Mr. Sund. Yes, that is the correct interpretation of the
letter. Both the assessments indicated that we were going to
have various militia groups and extremists in attendance, in
addition to the fact that, as Chief Contee had testified to
earlier, weapons were recovered during both those events.
Senator Padilla. OK. To the best of your recollection, in
the lead-up to January 6th, since it was a comparable
assessment, comparable intelligence, roughly, you therefore
proceeded with comparable preparation and posture.
Mr. Sund. Yes, that is absolutely correct. We proceeded
with the posture of seeing it could have instances of violence.
We knew it was going to be focused on the Capitol. We knew that
there was going to be members of Proud Boys and Antifa
participating. Like I had said before, not Capitol Police, not
Metropolitan Police, not any of our Federal agencies had any
information we were going to be facing armed insurrection of
thousands of people.
Senator Padilla. Now, if we take our experience with
terrorism globally and look at case studies, both incidents
that have been prevented and those that were successfully
executed against the United States, is it plausible--and I know
hindsight is 20/20. Is it plausible that the November 14 and
December 12 incidents may well have been trial runs, the very
extremist organizations you have referenced involved with the
organizing and participation of November 14 and December 12, to
gain counterintelligence on how you and your partner agencies
would be planning and preparing for such incidents?
Mr. Sund. As you rightly point out, when you look at some
of the terrorist attacks that have occurred, there has been
pre-planning. There has been pre-surveillance, pre-collection
of intelligence on the security features. I do not know if
November and December were two instances of that, but I would
suspect with the fact that we are finding this was a
coordinated attack, I would not doubt there was pre-
surveillance.
Senator Padilla. We do not know they were. We do not know
they were not. That is my point.
Mr. Sund. Correct.
Senator Padilla. I know the intelligence folks will be here
at a subsequent hearing, but we are all in this together. In
your letter and your testimony earlier today, you bluntly said
the intelligence community missed this.
Mr. Sund. That is correct, sir. That is the way I feel.
Senator Padilla. Now, who was Commander-in-Chief on
December 6?
Mr. Sund. When you say Commander-in-Chief?
Senator Padilla. Who was the President of the United
States----
Mr. Sund. Donald Trump, sir.
Senator Padilla [continuing]. Overseeing the intelligence
community that missed this. Repeat your answer.
Mr. Sund. For the entire 18 agencies that represent the
intelligence community?
Senator Padilla. Yes.
Mr. Sund. He would be Commander-in-Chief.
Senator Padilla. Who was that again?
Mr. Sund. President Donald Trump.
Senator Padilla. OK. Let me ask a couple of questions on a
different topic. I think it is obvious to many across the
country. I was one of three Senators who was not in chambers on
January 6th. I had, the benefit, if you will, of watching the
events occur in real time both inside the Capitol and outside
the Capitol on television. One thing that was not lost on me
and many people that I have talked to is the difference in both
police presence and response on January 6th compared to events
from last summer when peaceful protestors were demonstrating in
the Nation's capital in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Last
summer, they were met with significant force.
A couple of data points. To date, some 250 individuals who
were involved in the Capitol insurrection of January 6th have
been arrested. More will likely be arrested in the coming weeks
and months, but only a small number, about 52, of these
individuals were arrested on January 6th.
By contrast, during the largely peaceful protests of last
summer, 427 people were arrested. On June 1 alone, 289 people
were arrested. Similarly, some 300 protesters were arrested
during the Kavanaugh hearings in 2018.
So a question, Mr. Sund. Can you tell us exactly how the
Capitol Police preparations for January 6th differed from
preparations for the protests from last summer? If you can
specifically address if there were the same or different use-
of-force guidelines in place on January 6th compared to the
protests of last summer or any criteria for making arrests on
January 6th versus the protests from last summer.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. If you could do that in about a
minute.
Mr. Sund. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Sund. I will do that very concisely.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK.
Mr. Sund. I want to look at it from planning and
preparations. We plan for every demonstration the exact same
way. It does not matter the message of the person; it does not
matter the demographics of the grievance involved in the
demonstration. We do it the exact same way. We develop our
information, we develop our intel, and we base a response plan
on that.
Let us transition to preparations. I will tell you we
handled 15 major demonstrations involving Black Lives Matter
groups following the death of George Floyd over the summer. We
had a total of six arrests--six arrests--no use of less lethal
capabilities, no use of lethal force capabilities. The events,
everything that we put into place for January 6th far exceeded
any planning that we did for any events in 2020. With the full
activation of the department, the size of the perimeter that we
expanded, the deployment of additional protective equipment,
the deployment of less lethal and the application of less
lethal far exceeded anything, any other event that I can
recollect on the Nation's capital. I will just leave it at
that.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Mr. Sund. We really prepared much more.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
We are going to go to Senator Hagerty and then to Senator
King, who has been very patient and been on with us online
quite a while. Senator Hagerty.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAGERTY
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Chairman Klobuchar. Thank you
very much for having us here today and for holding this
hearing.
I want to begin by thanking all of the law enforcement
officers that are represented here today. You and your
families, thank you for your sacrifice, and certainly my heart
goes out to those families and loved ones who lost their lives
in this.
In the spring and summer of 2020, many people criticized
the use of the National Guard to help restore order in
Washington following some of the worst rioting in decades.
Mayor Bowser said that the Guard presence was, and I quote,
``unnecessary and maybe counterproductive.'' A D.C. National
Guard leader even had to tell his troops, I quote again, ``Some
of the D.C. public does not agree with our mission and may have
nefarious intention toward our servicemembers.''
According to a January 5th Washington Post report, top
Pentagon officials emphasized that on January 6th, the Guard
would have a ``far more muted presence than in June,'' saying
that, ``We have learned our lessons, and will be absolutely
nowhere near the Capitol Building.''
Mr. Sund has stated that, despite attempting to attain
National Guard support on Capitol Hill on January 6th, he was
unable to get approvals for such support. Several people today
have referred to concerns over the optics of January 6th.
My first question is directed to Mr. Sund. Do you think
that the backlash against the use of National Guard troops to
restore order back in the summertime led to reluctance in
advance of January 6th to utilize Guard troops to protect the
Capitol?
Mr. Sund. Sir, I cannot really testify to what the inner
working was or inner working decisions were at the Pentagon
regarding either the decisions from over the summer or the memo
that was put out by the Secretary of the Army on the 4th.
However, I was very surprised at the amount of time and the
pushback I was receiving when I was making an urgent request
for their assistance.
Senator Hagerty. That is regrettable. I would also like to
follow up on a line of questioning that Senator Hawley brought
up. Speaker Pelosi indicated that she intends to establish a
commission to examine the events of January 6th. Of course,
that is why we are here today, examining those issues. Speaker
Pelosi has also appointed a retired Army Lieutenant General,
Russel Honore, who is going to lead the investigation of what
happened. But days after the attack, General Honore said, ``I
think once all this gets uncovered''--again, I am quoting him--
``it was complicit actions by Capitol Police,'' before he
added, that you, Mr. Sund, were ``complicit along with the
Sergeant at Arms in the House and Senate.''
My question is: Do any of you believe that comments like
these by Mr. Honore suggest that he is someone who is well
suited to conduct a serious and unbiased review of the events
of January 6th? If so, please explain.
Mr. Sund. I will go ahead and start with that response. As
I had mentioned before, I found the comments that he made
regarding myself and also the Capitol Police officers highly
disrespectful to the hardworking women and men of that police
department and also to myself. I welcome and I look forward to
an after-action that will move this agency forward, move our
partnership with the Federal agencies forward, but it has to be
done in an unbiased fashion.
Senator Hagerty. I could not agree more, Mr. Sund. Any
other responses?
Mr. Stenger. I would disagree with the general's--what he
said. I do not believe that is true. There was a lot of people
that put themselves in very much danger on that day. I think
saying something like that is just not in good taste.
Senator Hagerty. Yes, I cannot imagine that being said
myself, implying that you all were complicit in this, but I
thank you for your answers and for your service.
I yield back, Madam Chairman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Hagerty.
Next, Senator King.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KING
Senator King. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the
witnesses first for their patience this morning and their
thoroughgoing answers. This has been a long hearing, and I
really appreciate it. I appreciate the fact that, although you
all are no longer, other than the Chief in Washington, no
longer in your positions, that you have come forward to give us
the benefit of your observations.
It seems to me one of the clear--I am not going to plow
this ground again, but one of the clear pieces of information
we have learned today is an intelligence failure, not
necessarily a failure of intelligence, but a failure to
communicate intelligence. I think that is something that we all
need to think about, and you can be very helpful to us in
suggesting what should be the chain of communication in terms
of intelligence. You cannot adequately prepare if you do not
have the information, and it clearly seems to me there were
some failures.
Chief Sund, I have a specific question for you, and it is
more forward-looking, but I would appreciate your insights. The
question is: How do we protect the Capitol from either an angry
mob or probably more likely one or two or three malignant
actors without turning it into a fortress? How do we allow the
American people to go in the rotunda, to tour the Capitol, to
picnic on the grounds, to play with their kids? It seems to me
that going forward that is really one of the challenges. We
want security, but we do not--I would hate to see the U.S.
Capitol turned into a fortress. Your thoughts, Mr. Sund?
Mr. Sund. I will go back to your original comment with the
intelligence and the communications. I think we have the
process in place for when we have credible intelligence,
especially high-level credible intelligence to quickly get to
where it needs to be. I think my big concern is on the
collection, on how wide we are casting the net to collect our
intelligence that would have revealed that this was coming and
we were facing this type of mass insurrection.
I definitely want to say the Capitol Police is well versed,
well trained on handling what you are talking about, a Mumbai-
style attack, a couple of attackers armed, active shooter
events, things like that. Those are the type of events that we
are ready for. It is the thousands of people that are storming
the Capitol that creates a big issue with us.
When you talk about physical security, and I had mentioned
it in my opening statement, in one of the initial questions, I
think there are options for maintaining an open environment, an
open-campus type of environment while putting some substantial
physical security measures in place, both for the building, the
skin of the building, as well as farther out. Time and distance
is our best friend, and the most important thing is to provide
some kind of protection farther out so the officers have more
time to deal with it. But that is something that I think should
be discussed in a closed or classified session.
Senator King. I understand but--and I hope that that is a
discussion, Madam Chair, that we can have. I think that is very
important, because we just--as I say, we do not want the United
States Capitol to be so protected that it is inaccessible to
the American people.
Amplify on your intelligence answer. It seems to me you are
saying it is communicated adequately, but we did not have the
collection that we needed. For example, the Norfolk, Virginia,
letter, how does it get filtered and where does it get
filtered?
Mr. Sund. Again, the Norfolk Field Office letter, that is
something to consider because even on the 5th, at noon on the
5th, I held a joint conference call with the members of the
board, my executive team, a dozen of the top law enforcement
and military officials from Washington, D.C., where we
discussed the upcoming events on the 6th, the upcoming events
for the Inauguration, any kind of threats, any kind of issues
we may have. Even though we had the director of the field
office, the Washington Field Office of the FBI, nothing was
mentioned about it.
I think my big point is I think we need to look out. There
is significant evidence coming out that the insurrection that
occurred on the 6th was planned, coordinated well in advance,
coordinated almost to the point where you are looking between
number of States where you are having events coordinated. It is
that detection that I think would have been key to putting the
effective security in place for this event.
Senator King. Finally, when we are talking about providing
this level of security, is there a playbook? Is there a
contingency plan that is literally sitting on a shelf somewhere
that says demonstrations around the Capitol, here is what you
do? I mean, some of the timing things, for example, the
deployment of the National Guard might have been faster had
there been a predetermined set of phone numbers, actions, steps
to be taken. Does that exist? If not, should it exist?
Mr. Sund. To the level where you are including the National
Guard, there is a process where we handle special events and
demonstrations, but I tend to agree that we need to streamline
the process that we request the National Guard in the future.
Senator King. Yes, because clearly there was a delay there
that was an important part of the response at the time.
Madam Chair, again, I want to thank these witnesses. I
think they have really made a contribution, and they made a
contribution when they were serving in their respective
positions. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Sinema is recognized for her questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is for Chief Contee. What coordinating
actions were taken in the weeks leading up to January 6th to
share intel across Federal and local law enforcement? What
security planning took place and with which agencies?
Mr. Contee. Thank you for that question. There were a
series of several meetings that took place leading up to the
events of January 6th. There are the weekly law enforcement
partners calls that take place where our Federal partners are
part of that. There is the First Amendment coordinating calls
that took place, at least two of those, prior to this event.
There is a National Park Service permit call that also took
place prior to this event and, as Chief Sund mentioned, several
calls involving several of the law enforcement entities leading
up to the events of January 6th.
There are a significant amount of phone calls or virtual
meetings that took place leading up to January 6th.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. Could you talk a little bit
about what you see as the mistakes that were made or the holes
that did not help connect all those dots in those meetings and
coordinating prior to January 6th?
Mr. Contee. I think the major issue, at least from my
perspective, I think that in terms of the sharing of
information, how it is shared, I think that that is where the
focus should be. Again, we are talking about a report that came
from the Norfolk office on the day before, that night, after 7
p.m., that was sent to email boxes. As the Chief of Police for
the Metropolitan Police Department, I assure you that my phone
is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I am available for
any phone call from any agency that has information with
respect to something of this magnitude happening in our city.
Certainly if there was information about one of our police
stations being overrun or a Federal building being overrun that
was related to the Metropolitan Police Department, I assure you
that I would be on the phone directly with the officials that
are responsible for the law enforcement response to give them
that information firsthand. I am not really relying on
technology in the form of an email in hopes that that
information makes it to where it needs to be. I think that that
is critical.
To Chief Sund's point, there were several phone calls
leading up to this and no specific information that talked
about the events that we saw and experienced on January 6th. I
really do believe that there should be quite a bit of attention
given to that.
Senator Sinema. I appreciate that. My next question is for
Mr. Sund. You outlined that the FBI report was sent via email
to the Capitol Police the evening of January 5th and that you
never received the report. Is there an understanding within the
system of how that report did not make it to you or to other
individuals in leadership in the Capitol Police the night of
January 5th?
Mr. Sund. I appreciate that question, ma'am. Actually, as I
had mentioned earlier in the discussion, this is a report that
I am just learning about within the last--they informed me
yesterday of the report. I am not sure what investigation may
be going on. Since January 8th, I have left the department.
What investigations? I know the Chief has put additional
safeguards in place to make sure something like that does not
happen again, but I am not sure of what the outcome was, why
that did not get pushed up farther.
Senator Sinema. Was there an expectation or a process or
procedure prior to January 6th that should have gotten that
memo up to your attention the night of January 5th?
Mr. Sund. There is a process that ensures that information
from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and through our task force
officers gets over to their Intelligence Division and would be
moved up to our intelligence analyst and the director of that
Intelligence Division. Then based on that information, he could
push it then up to the Assistant Chief or directly to me. He
has my cell phone number. We talk regularly.
Senator Sinema. As you mentioned, you were just learning
about this recently, but would it have been an expectation that
the FBI would have called Capitol Police or someone on the
Joint Task Force to alert the new intelligence in an expedited
fashion? Knowing that this information made it to the Capitol
Police intel team on the 5th, what I am trying to understand is
how it did not get to the higher levels to make preparations
the night of the 5th.
Mr. Sund. Right. I will just go ahead and echo what Chief
Contee had mentioned, that I do think that deserves additional
focus. I think if we have information that is coming in the day
before a major event, that has that level of specificity, that
it could get a little more attention than, being handled either
through an email or electronic format.
Senator Sinema. Was there any intelligence that you did
receive in the several days leading up to January 6th that
caused you to change any of the security plans amongst the
United States Capitol Police?
Mr. Sund. So just to reiterate, all the intelligence and
all the information that we had been receiving during the
development of the event for the 6th outlined very similar to
what the intelligence report that was published on the 3rd
outlined.
We were expecting a large number of protesters coming in.
We expected a potentially violent group. We knew they were
being focused on the Capitol, and we knew that some of them may
be armed. That is what was really driving up until even--
regardless of what was put out the 3rd, this was information
that we knew. We were developing our security plan around that.
That is when we looked at, based on our review of the November
and December MAGA events, determined we were going to adjust
our fence line and push our fence line out. When we want to do
that, that is when I would request the National Guard, knowing
we are going to need support for the fence line.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
Chief Contee, you stated that the intelligence that you had
received on January 6th did not differ from the previous MAGA
marches, the two previous.
Was there any conversation or consideration about the fact
that the January 6th was scheduled on a very important day,
that Congress would be in session certifying the results of the
election? Was that different in a consideration around security
than the other two marches, which had been on weekends without
Congress being in session?
Mr. Contee. Absolutely, and that is reflected in the
response posture for the Metropolitan Police Department. For
the two prior demonstrations that happened, the MAGA 1 and 2
marches, the Metropolitan Police Department, we did not call up
officers from surrounding jurisdictions to be stationed
physically within the footprint of the District of Columbia. We
did not do that before.
The Mayor, in addition to calling up those additional
resources, again, called up the National Guard specifically for
the reasons that we outlined to them, which would allow the
Metropolitan Police Department to be a lot nimble in our
response. That, in essence, enabled us to be able to respond
quickly to assist the Capitol Police officers. Those responses
were different. We were disrupting individuals or intercepting
individuals who were armed with firearms in our city, in
violation of the Mayor's order, many of whom were on Federal
grounds. The Metropolitan Police Department's posture certainly
was escalated beyond what we did at the prior two marches.
Senator Sinema. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence. I see I have
gone over my time. I have a few extra questions that I will
submit.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Very good. Thank you, Senator
Sinema, and thank you for your emphasis on the FBI report and
the issues that everyone here seems to acknowledge with getting
that, that it did not go at the right place, and just putting
``Send'' is not enough for a report like that.
OK. Next we have Senator Cruz, and then after that will be
Senator Ossoff. If there are any other Senators who wish to ask
questions who have not asked questions, you should tell us,
because those are the last two we have.
Senator Cruz.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CRUZ
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me say to each of
the witnesses here today, thank you for being here. Thank you
for your testimony. Thank you also for your service. I want to
thank each of you and also each of the heroic law enforcement
officers who demonstrated extraordinary courage in fighting to
repel the terrorist attack that unfolded on the Capitol on
January 6th. We are grateful for the bravery and the courage in
the face of a truly horrific attack.
In the aftermath of that attack, there is naturally a
process to assess what could have been done to better prevent
that attack, to better secure the Capitol. I think everyone
recognizes that hindsight is different from a decision made in
the moment, facing the threat immediately. But this hearing is
nonetheless productive for analyzing the security decisions and
law enforcement decisions that were made realtime and for
learning from them what can be done differently to ensure that
an attack like that never again occurs.
Chief Sund, I want to focus on, with some detail, your
written testimony and just walk through what occurred in the
days preceding January 6th and then on January 6th. In your
written testimony, you say, ``On Monday, January 4th, I
approached the two Sergeants at Arms to request the assistance
of the National Guard, as I had no authority to do so . . .''
You go on to say, ``I first spoke with the House Sergeant at
Arms to request the National Guard. Mr. Irving stated that he
was concerned about the `optics' of having National Guard
present and didn't feel that the intelligence supported it. He
referred me to the Senate Sergeant at Arms . . . to get his
thoughts on the request. I then spoke to Mr. Stenger and again
requested the National Guard. Instead of approving the use of
the National Guard, however, Mr. Stenger suggested I ask them
how quickly we could get support if needed and to `lean
forward' in case we had to request assistance on January 6th.''
Can you describe at a little more length those
conversations with the two Sergeant at Arms on January 4th?
Mr. Sund. Absolutely, sir. The first conversation occurred
Monday morning. I went over, I would have to refer to my notes,
but sometime maybe around 11 a.m. I met with Mr. Irving in his
office. That is where I made the first request for the National
Guard. He had indicated, ``I do not know if I really like the
optics. I do not think the intelligence really supports it.''
He had, like we had said, recommended I talk to the Senate
Sergeant at Arms. I went over and met with, later on the day,
either--I am trying to recall if it was in person or over the
phone. I would have to go back to my timeline where I reached
out to him. They may have already talked, because he had
referred me. He said, ``You know somebody over at the D.C.
National Guard?'' I said, ``Yes, I do. I have a good friend
over there, General William Walker.'' He said, ``Can you give
him a call and see if we needed assistance, how quickly could
we get assistance and what type of assistance could he give
us?''
So that evening, as I was driving home at about 6:35 p.m.,
I went ahead and called General Walker and spoke to him and
said, ``Hey, General Walker, I do not have authority to request
National Guard, but I want to find out, if we needed them on
Wednesday, how quickly could you get them for us, and is there
a way you can kind of, be prepared just in case we put in the
request?''
At that point, he had advised to me that he has 125
National Guardsmen who are supporting the COVID response in the
District of Columbia, and if we needed a quick response, he
could what he called ``repurpose them'' and get them to the
Armory, at which point we could get somebody over to swear them
in and try and get them to us as quick as possible. We ended
our call.
The next day I met with both--I met with Mr. Stenger. He
came over to the office for the 12 p.m. video call that I had
hosted with the dozen of the law enforcement officials from
D.C.. We spoke about it briefly there and told him what Wayne
Walker had told me, as well as I passed it on to Mr. Irving, I
think later on that afternoon, and they both seem satisfied
with that response.
Senator Cruz. Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger--Mr. Irving, as I
understand it, you have some disagreement with the
characterization about the concern about the optics, so I would
invite both Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger to relay your best
recollection of that conversation on January 4th.
Mr. Irving. Senator, my best recollection of the
conversation on January 4th was a phone call from Chief Sund
indicating that he had received an offer for 125 unarmed Guard
that could be positioned around traffic perimeter checkpoints
at the Capitol.
My recollection again is, as we followed up with Mr.
Stenger, that three of us engaged in a conversation whereby we
looked at the offer in light of the existing intelligence. The
decision, the collective decision amongst the three of us, was
that the intelligence did not warrant the National Guard. My
recollection, that ended the discussion relative to the offer.
The only question on the table is: Should we perform any
follow-up? Mr. Stenger recommended that we ask that they be
placed on standby. House and Senate leadership staff were in
Mr. Stenger's office when I received Chief Sund's request on
January 6th, and agreed with my response.
Senator Cruz. To the best of your recollection, did you
make the comment about optics? If so, what did you mean by
that?
Mr. Irving. I cannot remember my exact verbiage. Had I used
any language to the effect, it was all in reference to whether
the intelligence was matched to the security plan.
Senator Cruz. Let me ask both Mr. Irving and Mr. Stenger,
did you all have conversations with congressional leadership,
either Democratic or Republican leadership, on this question of
supplementing law enforcement presence, bringing in National
Guard either on January 4th or realtime on January 6th?
Mr. Irving. On January 4th, no, I had no follow-up
conversations. It was not until the 6th that I alerted
leadership that we might be making a request. That was the end
of the discussion.
Senator Cruz. Mr. Stenger.
Mr. Sund. For myself, it was January 6th that I mentioned
it to Leader McConnell's staff.
Senator Cruz. There has been some disagreement about what
time phone calls occurred. I know Senator Portman asked
earlier. Presumably everyone has phone records. I think it
would be helpful if each of you could forward the relevant
phone records to this committee.\1\
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\1\ The information requested by Senator Cruz appears in the
Appendix on page 134.
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Chief Sund, you also referenced in your testimony that you
sent an email to congressional leadership. If you could forward
that to the Committee as well, I think that would be helpful.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Senator Ossoff.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to our
panel. I just want to take a moment and echo the sentiments of
so many of my colleagues expressing appreciation for the men
and women of the United States Capitol Police who endured a
great deal on January 6th and showed great heroism. Also, Madam
Chair, if I might express an interest in working with you to
ensure that they are well taken care of and their needs are
met.
This discussion of the conversation that the three of you
had regarding supplementary security support on January 6th
raises the question of who is in charge. Is consensus between
the two Sergeants at Arms and the Chief of the U.S. Capitol
Police required to make such a request? Mr. Sund.
Mr. Sund. The request for the National Guard needs to go to
the Capitol Police Board for approval, yes.
Senator Ossoff. Who has ultimate responsibility for the
security of the U.S. Capitol Complex? Which individual?
Mr. Sund. I believe that falls under the Capitol Police
Board.
Senator Ossoff. The Capitol Police Board. There is no
individual who has personal responsibility for the security of
the U.S. Capitol Complex?
Mr. Sund. That is the way I interpret it, yes.
Senator Ossoff. Had the U.S. Capitol Police conducted
exercises simulating comparable events, such as a violent riot
on or within the U.S. Capitol Complex?
Mr. Sund. Part of our training for civil disobedience units
involves dealing with riotous groups. We do do that training.
We do do training on people attempting to gain entry into the
building. Officers are trained on how to handle if someone
tries to come through your door unauthorized. But training for
thousands of armed insurrectionists that were coordinated and
well-equipped? No, we have not had that training before January
6th, but I am sure they will find a way to do it now.
Senator Ossoff. If I understand correctly, Mr. Sund, you
are saying that personnel had engaged in tactical training
regarding techniques to repel attempts to breach the complex,
regarding rules of engagement. But have you had any
comprehensive exercises that included command, that included
procedures for coordination with supporting agencies, that
included requests for support, that included communications
with the Department of Defense or White House officials or
Guard units been conducted?
Mr. Sund. Yes, we have. We do exercises that are very
similar to what you are talking about before some of our
National Special Security Events. Those are the NSSEs such as
the inauguration. We will do tabletop exercises that go through
the process of what you are talking about, yes.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Had the Capitol Police held any
such exercises not pertaining to specific National Special
Security Events? In order to deal with emergent contingencies,
like a riot, not associated with one of those moments
specifically identified as requiring a whole-of-government
security response?
Mr. Sund. Yes, one of the most important aspects of that
that you are talking about, that we train our individuals to,
is what we call the ``incident command system.'' That is one of
the systems that we feel really under the unprecedented
pressure that they exhibited on January 6th began to break
down.
The incident command system is established specifically so
you have people that have the clearest understanding of what is
happening, either in the field or inside the building, in
control of the resources, to utilize, to defend against
whatever issue you are having, or respond to whatever incident
you have.
It is really an all-hazards approach, but that is something
that is trained. We have it as part of our general orders. That
is something that we will need to look back on to see how it
broke under this pressure.
Senator Ossoff. I ask this question in part because of the
account that has been shared regarding the coordination with
the guard unit, which was here for a COVID-related mission. If
I recall correctly, you have related that you had a
conversation with the commanding officer and discussed
mobilizing that unit if necessary, first via an intermediary
stop at a Marine Corps facility, to then come to the Capitol if
necessary on January 6th.
Where there not preexisting channels of communication and
procedures in the event you--not at a moment such as
Inauguration or the State of the Union, but on any given day,
needed a quick reaction force to provide security support?
Mr. Sund. I think when you refer to it, I think it is the
established process where if you are going to request them in
advance, or request them for an incident. I think what we need
to look at is those emergency requests.
But there is a process for going through the Secretary of
the Army, placing an official request. Ultimately, we did that.
We had to do a letterhead after the fact. We did the oral
request first and set it up that way. But I think what I did by
reaching out to General Walker was to get an idea, much like,
as I was requested to do, if we requested them on the 6th, what
kind of resources could they give us, and what type of
timeframe would we be looking at? But I agree. There is already
existing process and channels for making the request for
National Guard.
Senator Ossoff. Right, because you, in fact, anticipated
there might be some need based upon intelligence that your
department was seeing. But on any given day, if a foreign
terrorist organization decided to mount an attack on this
complex, do the procedures exist and are the channels in place
such that a quick reaction force can be mustered swiftly, such
that someone in your position knows exactly who to call and
they can do so without consulting with the Sergeants at Arms?
Mr. Sund. I think what you are saying is what we need to
look at, because I would still be required to consult with the
Sergeant at Arms to make the request for National Guard.
Senator Ossoff. OK. My time is running short, so I want to
ask you this: What is the intelligence budget for the U.S.
Capitol Police? How many personnel do you have in the
Intelligence Division or did you have when you served as the
Chief?
Mr. Sund. I would have to go back and pull that specific
information. We have a number of intel analysts. We have a
number of people that work there, both sworn and civilian. But
I want to give you clear and accurate----
Senator Ossoff. Approximately how many personnel are in the
Intelligence Division?
Mr. Sund. I would say approximately right around 30 or 35
people.
Senator Ossoff. 30 or 35. Does the U.S. Capitol Police have
the capacity to do any intelligence collection other than by
making requests to executive branch agencies for raw
intelligence or analysis?
Mr. Sund. Again, when you talk about intelligence
collection, we are a consumer of intelligence from the
intelligence community. We do have the ability to go and look
at open source, see what people are talking about on open
source, but going and collecting in-depth specific intelligence
is something that we are a consumer of from the intelligence
community.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. I appreciate your time. I yield
back.
Mr. Sund. Thank you, sir.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. That was our
last set of questions, and we are going to conclude this
hearing. I wanted to say a few words at the end.
First of all, I want to thank Chairman Peters and Ranking
Members Blunt and Portman for conducting this hearing in such a
professional way. We had a bipartisan agreement on how this
hearing would be conducted, who our witnesses would be, and
also the plan to have additional hearings, including one next
week that we will be announcing tomorrow with the Department of
Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, because
clearly we have and our members have additional questions.
I want to thank the witnesses, as I said, for voluntarily
appearing before us. I want to thank Captain Mendoza for her
moving words and bravery. In many ways, she represents all of
the officers that were there that day.
A few things that are very clear to me. The first is the
statements at the beginning from all the witnesses. They may
have disagreed on some details. But there is clear agreement
that this was a planned insurrection, and I think most members
here very firmly agree with that. I think it is important for
the public to know that this was planned. We now know this was
a planned insurrection. It involved white supremacists, it
involved extremist groups, and it certainly could have been so
much worse except for the bravery of the officers.
Second, we learned about the intelligence breakdown. Many
of the Members of both Committees asked about that,
particularly the January 5th FBI report that had some very
significant warnings from social media about people who were
coming to Washington who wanted to wage war. The fact that did
not get to key leaders and the Sergeant of Arms or the Capitol
Police Chief is, of course, very disturbing, really on both
ends. I mean, you cannot just push ``Send''--as we all know, we
get tons of emails--and hope that it gets to the right person,
especially when we are dealing with something so serious.
The January 3rd intelligence report that came right out of
the Capitol Police also contained, according to Washington Post
reports and other information, some pretty foreboding details
that I would have thought would have resulted in planning and
more preparations.
The delays in approving a request for National Guard
assistance, both from the Capitol Police Board and the
Department of Defense, the fact that the Sergeant at Arms were
focused on keeping the members safe in both chambers, while the
Chief was trying to get some emergency approval. To me, you can
point fingers, but you could also look at this as a process
that is not prepared for a crisis.
I think out of that, there is some general agreement, just
based on talking to a number of members, that there should be
changes to the Capitol Police Board, the approval process and
the like. It is clear that that action must be taken not only
to protect our Capitol, but also to protect the brave officers
charged with protecting this citadel of democracy.
Better intelligence sharing. Always an outcome when there
is failures of intelligence. We know that. But I think we will
get more details in the coming week. Some security changes at
the Capitol. Requests that have been made for a while on those
changes that I think we have to seriously consider. No, it does
not have to be barbed wire. Of course, this is a public
building, and you want the school groups and you want the
veterans and you want people to be able to visit here. But that
does not mean that we do not make some smart security changes
to this building.
The use of the National Guard. We know after September 11,
the National Guard helped for quite a while. We also know that
we have to have a plan going forward, as well as consider what
happens when we need a greater number of National Guard in a
crisis, and how those approvals are made.
Those are just some of my takeaways. I am sure many others
will have more, but I do want to make it clear that there are
some items of agreement between most of us on this Committee. I
do not think we should let the words of a few become the story
here, because I think this has been a very constructive
hearing.
I want to thank our witnesses for coming forward as they
did, and I want to thank Senator Peters. We look forward to
more hearings. Thank you.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Chair Klobuchar. I have enjoyed
this hearing. Thank you for your leadership. It has been good
working with you and your entire team with the Rules and
Administration Committee.
I certainly want to thank Ranking Members Blunt and Portman
and all of the members who came here together today to work in
a bipartisan way, to ask tough questions and to get answers.
I want to thank Captain Mendoza for sharing her
experiences. Certainly a very powerful way to start this
hearing.
But I truly appreciate each of the witnesses that were here
today, who came here today willingly and knew you would be
asked tough questions, and you were willing to do that.
Certainly, we appreciate you for that effort. While this
hearing certainly shed some new light and offered some new
information on what happened to the lead-up, as well as to the
response to the January 6th attack on our Capitol, it also
raised a number of additional questions that need to be asked.
For the past two years, I have been working to draw
attention to the rise of domestic terrorism, and specifically
violence driven by white supremacists. We have only seen the
threat of this violence grow, not just from white supremacists,
but also from antigovernment groups and people who have been
swept up by conspiracy theories and just simple outright lies.
The events of January 6th and the answers that we heard
today only further highlight a grave national security threat
that our current homeland security apparatus is clearly not
fully equipped to address.
Our national security agencies were overhauled, and they
were forged in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, and
they are basically built around responding to foreign terrorist
attacks, and they have been slow to adapt to this evolving
threat of domestic terrorism that we have seen in the last few
years.
The Homeland Security Committee was created to oversee
reforms, to fix the intelligence failures that led to September
11, and now I intend to assure that this Committee oversees
efforts to fix the failures that led to the January 6th attack.
There is no question our Federal counterterrorism resources are
not focused on effectively addressing the growing and deadly
domestic terror threat. The January 6th attack marked a once-
in-a-lifetime failure, and now we have the duty to ensure that
the Federal Government is doing everything in its power to make
sure another attack like this never happens again.
We must align our counterterrorism resources and our
intelligence-gathering efforts to ensure we are focused on this
dire threat. The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and
the National Counterterrorism Center right now are eight months
late on a report to assess the threat posed by domestic
terrorism. We are going to continue to push them to complete
this report as soon as possible so that we can take meaningful
action.
There is no question in my mind that there was a failure to
take this threat more seriously, despite widespread social
media content and public reporting that indicated violence was
extremely likely.
The Federal Government must start taking these online
threats seriously to ensure they do not cross into real-world
violence. I also plan to keep the pressure up on social media
companies to work harder to ensure that their platforms are not
used as a tool to organize violence.
This investigation does not end here today, and I look
forward to our next hearing where we will continue to seek
answers to important questions that were raised today and
others that need to be answered.
Before we adjourn, however, I have to do a bit of quick
housekeeping. It is my privilege to announce the Members of the
Subcommittees of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee for the 117th Congress.
The following Senators will serve on the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations: Jon Ossoff will be Chair, Ron
Johnson the Ranking Member, Tom Carper, Maggie Hassan, Alex
Padilla, Rand Paul, James Lankford, and Rick Scott.
The following Senators will serve on the Emerging Threats
and Spending Oversight Subcommittee: Maggie Hassan will be
Chair, Rand Paul will be Ranking Member; Kyrsten Sinema, Jacky
Rosen, Jon Ossoff, Mitt Romney, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley.
And the following Senators will serve on the Government
Operations and Border Management Subcommittee: It will be
chaired by Kyrsten Sinema; James Lankford will be Ranking
Member; Tom Carper, Alex Padilla, Jon Ossoff, Ron Johnson, Mitt
Romney, and Josh Hawley.
Congratulations to our new Chairs, our Ranking Members, and
to all Members of our Committee. I look forward to working with
all of you in the months and years ahead.
Officially, the record for this hearing will remain open
until 5 p.m. on March 9, 2021, for the submission of statements
and questions for the record.
With that, this hearing is officially adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:57 p.m., the Committees were adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
EXAMINING THE JANUARY 6 ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL, PART II
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
and the Committee on Rules and Administration,
Washington, DC.
The Committees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gary C. Peters,
Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee and Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman of the Committee
on Rules and Administration, presiding.
Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen,
Padilla, Ossoff, Klobuchar, Feinstein, Warner, King, Merkley,
Portman, Johnson, Paul, Lankford, Romney, Scott, Hawley, Blunt,
Cruz, Capito, Wicker, Fischer, Hyde-Smith, and Hagerty.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN KLOBUCHAR\1\
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I call to order the second joint
hearing of the Rules and Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committees (HSGAC) on examining the January 6 attack on
the United States Capitol.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Klobuchar appears in the
Appendix on page 265.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At today's hearing we will continue our Committees'
important work to get answers that will lead us to solutions
following the horrific events at the Capitol on January 6. Last
week we heard from witnesses who were directly in charge of
Capitol security on that day and from local law enforcement in
Washington. Today we will hear testimony from the head of the
District of Columbia National Guard (DCNG) and from Federal
officials from agencies, including the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), Department of Defense (DOD), and
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), that are tasked with
supporting our security people at the Capitol.
The testimony of these witnesses is crucial as we work to
get to the bottom of what happened, again, with the focus being
on making sure it does not happen again.
With that, I now turn it over to Chairman Peters for his
opening statement. I will give mine, then Senators Blunt and
Portman. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member
Portman and Ranking Member Blunt, and to all of our colleagues
from the Rules Committee for once again joining us to convene
this second joint hearing on the January 6 attack on our
Capitol Building.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix
on page 263.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last week's hearing provided really the first opportunity
for the American people to hear about the attack directly from
the security officials that were on the ground. Today we will
be seeking answers on the role of the Federal national security
and counterterrorism agencies and officials played in
intelligence-gathering, security, planning, and response to the
attack.
I want to thank each of our witnesses for joining us
voluntarily here today, and I am grateful to all of you and the
employees of each of your agencies, including the National
Guard units who continue to assist in protecting the Capitol
today. We appreciate their continued efforts to safeguard our
national security.
While there are still many unanswered questions about
January 6, it is clear that this violent, coordinated attack
was the result of a massive and historic intelligence failure.
Today our Committees will once again examine the systemic
breakdowns that led to this terrible attack and, particularly,
how our intelligence and national security experts failed to
see it coming.
This is not a new problem. For years, I have been raising
the alarm about the growing domestic terrorism threat with the
Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other key
agencies, and their continued failures to adequately and
effectively align our counterterrorism efforts to address the
threats posed by domestic extremists.
But the January 6 attack must mark a turning point. There
can be no question that the domestic terrorist threat,
including violence driven by white supremacists and
antigovernment groups, is the gravest terrorist threat to our
homeland security.
Moving forward, the FBI, which is tasked with leading our
counterterrorism efforts, and the Department of Homeland
Security, which ensures that State and local law enforcement
understand threats that American communities face, must address
this deadly threat with the same focus and resources and
analytical rigor that they apply to foreign threats such as the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda.
Today's witnesses are uniquely qualified to discuss what
intelligence was produced in the days leading up to the attack,
what officials missed as they assessed the likelihood of
violence that day, and why our intelligence community (IC)
failed to heed the crystal-clear warnings that were broadcast
on social media and publicly reported in the days leading up to
the 6th that a violent attack on the Capitol was likely
imminent.
We also need answers about the operational failures that
terrible day, especially the response to secure the building
once it was breached.
I am pleased that we have representatives of both the
Department of Defense's civilian leadership and the National
Guard to help us understand why it took several hours for the
National Guard to arrive and offer additional security and
support.
The January 6 attack on the citadel of our democracy
remains a dark stain on our Nation's history. Both of our
Committees, have a responsibility to carry out our oversight
duties in a serious and nonpartisan way.
I look forward to having a productive discussion, and
getting the answers that the American people deserve and what
we need to do to make sure that reforms are put in place to
prevent an attack like this from ever happening again.
With that, I will turn it back over to Chairwoman
Klobuchar.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
want to start by thanking you and Ranking Member Blunt and
Ranking Member Portman for the bipartisan and constructive
hearing that we had last week. I also want to thank the many
members of both Committees who patiently participated during
votes and all last week and asked thoughtful questions that
will help us move forward.
Importantly, there were a number of areas of agreement. We
heard all of our witnesses last week make clear that there is
now evidence that the insurrection was deliberate and
coordinated, that it involved white supremacists and extremist
groups, and that it was highly dangerous but could have been so
much worse if it was not for the actions of brave law
enforcement on the front line.
We also heard consensus from witnesses who held key
leadership positions in charge of the Capitol security. Now,
they did not agree on everything, but there was consensus there
were breakdowns in intelligence sharing, delays in bringing in
the National Guard, and issues concerning the structure of the
Capitol Police Board and the decisionmaking process that it is
in our unique responsibility to change.
I hope that the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation
will continue today as we hear testimony from Federal agencies
on their roles with respect to intelligence gathering and
timely sharing of intelligence, security preparations, the
response and the requests for help from the Defense Department
as well as their perspectives on how the U.S. Capitol Police
(USCP) decisionmaking process could be so much better going
forward.
We know that there were errors made by those in charge of
security in the Capitol, and it is always easy, of course, to
realize that later than in the moment. But that fact alone to
me is not enough to not look back. We must look back because we
must do better going forward.
We heard last week that the Capitol Police is a consumer--
that was the word of the former Chief of Intelligence. It
relies on its Federal partners, including the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security, who have witnesses here today.
While we are aware of the FBI raw intelligence report that came
out the day before out of the Norfolk office, public reporting
has indicated that neither agency, DHS or FBI, produced a
threat report, that the FBI did not produce a joint
intelligence bulletin, and that DHS did not produce a threat
assessment ahead of January 6. The former Police Chief has said
that representatives from these agencies indicated they did not
have any new intelligence to share at a meeting before the day
of the attack.
But the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol, as we
know, came prepared for war, as we heard last week. They
brought radios, they brought climbing gear to surmount the
Capitol's security features, and they brought weapons. We need
to hear from the Federal agencies about what was known and
when, what was done in response to these foreboding online
threats, and how information was shared with the law
enforcement partners who depend on them.
We need to also understand why, with all the information
that was available, the decision to reinforce local police with
the National Guard was not made ahead of time. Now, that
decision was made--or maybe I should say rather not made by the
former House and Senate Sergeant at Arms (SSA) who, in fact,
have resigned. Nevertheless, despite the clear breakdowns at
the Capitol, we must get to the bottom of why that very day it
took the Defense Department so long to deploy the National
Guard once the need for reinforcements became patently clear on
every TV screen in America.
At our hearing last week, Acting Chief Contee provided a
disturbing account of how at 2:22 p.m., as the rioters already
had broken through police lines, smashed windows at the
Capitol, and were breaching the building, all on live
television, the initial response from the Defense Department to
a request of National Guard support was not to immediately
activate the Guard. As the Acting Chief said to us last week,
he was ``simply just stunned'' that there was not a more
immediate response.
Last, an issue of critical importance in today's hearing is
the threat posed by domestic terrorism and hate groups and
their role in the attack on January 6th. We will never forget
the story of the Capitol Police officer who fought against the
violent mob for hours, and after it was all over broke down in
tears, telling his fellow officers how he had been called the
``N'' word repeatedly that day, and then said, ``Is this
America?''
We also will not forget the picture of the insurrectionists
proudly waving a Confederate flag in the Capitol rotunda or the
images of a rioter in a Camp Auschwitz hoodie.
But this rising problem is not just limited to the events
on January 6. According to an FBI report, hate crimes in the
United States rose to the highest level in more than a decade
in 2019.
Putting all the dates and the memos aside, there was
widespread knowledge of the importance of the date of the rise
of violent extremism and that the President of the United
States had called out his followers to go to the Capitol that
day. The warnings were dismissed, despite the fact that the
Vice President, the future Vice President, and the entire
Congress was gathered in one place. In the end, it was left to
front-line officers, who were severely outnumbered, to protect
not only those of us in the Capitol but our democracy itself.
They performed heroically under unimaginable circumstances,
tragically suffering many injuries and loss of life. That is
why we need answers. Thank you.
Senator Portman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\
Senator Portman. Thank you Senator Klobuchar and Senator
Peters and Ranking Member Blunt, for the way you all have
approached this process. It is important that we keep it
bipartisan, I would even say nonpartisan, and I hope that our
review continues to set politics aside and focus on the facts,
what happened that day, and how can we avoid it happening
again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the
Appendix on page 268.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to begin by expressing again my gratitude to law
enforcement and the National Guard, who is represented here
today. From all over the country, there are National Guard here
in the Capitol still, and we appreciate them. We appreciate the
fact that law enforcement put their safety on the line to
safeguard democracy, also to protect us, and we will never
forget that.
We owe it to those law enforcement personnel and those
National Guard and to all Americans to take a hard look at
these security failures, both the preparation that was
inadequate, clearly, and the response, which also had some gaps
that we will talk about in a moment.
How could this have happened that the Capitol was breached
and overrun?
We got some answers last week at our first joint hearing on
the Capitol. I agree with what Senator Klobuchar just said,
that it was a constructive first hearing. I thought it was
productive, and I thought we were able to get some good
information. We heard from the Acting Chief of D.C.
Metropolitan Police (MPD), the former Chief of Capitol Police,
the former Sergeant at Arms. What was good is that we heard
from the people who were actually responsible on that day for
making decisions. I am concerned that today we are not going to
be hearing from the Department of Defense officials who were
actually in place at the time making the decisions, and I hope
we will have an opportunity to do that in the future.
At last week's hearing, we learned a number of things. We
learned that Capitol Police officers were not prepared to
respond to an attack like the one we experienced on January 6.
They were not given the appropriate training or equipment
necessary to protect the Capitol Complex, but also to protect
themselves. Also, we learned there were breakdowns in
communication on January 6 and in the days leading up to it.
The most concerning breakdown in communication, of course,
concerned the significant discrepancies between the
recollections of the former Chief of Capitol Police and the
former Senate and House Sergeant at Arms about requests for
backup, for National Guard assistance in particular. Each
testified under oath to a different version of events, so we
will get to the bottom of that.
The witnesses also pointed to lapses in intelligence as a
key reason law enforcement was not better prepared. They all
claimed no intelligence warned of a coordinated, violent
assault of the Capitol. But we know that there were reports out
there, both publicly and from the FBI. There was at least one
report from the FBI Norfolk Field Office warning of a violent
attack on the Capitol. It was received by U.S. Capitol Police,
but it never reached the former Chief, it never reached the
former Sergeant at Arms, or even the incident commanders on the
ground.
Many questions remain unanswered. Despite the lack of
intelligence, there were warning signs. Numerous online posts
called for attacking the Capitol, and the previously mentioned
FBI Norfolk field report warned of violence and even war. We
need to know what information the intelligence community
reviewed prior to January 6th, how it assessed that
intelligence and how it characterized the potential for
violence when it shared that intelligence with law enforcement.
Second, although last week's witnesses disagreed about when
the Capitol Police requested National Guard assistance, all
agreed that, once requested, it took far too long for the
National Guard to arrive. We will dig further into this today.
Based on the Defense Department's public timeline, once
requested, it took the National Guard over three hours to
arrive at the Capitol. Now, remember, we are all watching this
on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, and it is a riot. Yet it took more than
three hours. The request came in from the Capitol Hill Police
Chief Sund at 1:49 p.m., we are told, and the Capitol Hill
deployment did not arrive until after 5 p.m. We will hear some
different timelines on that today, but all of them are after 5
p.m., closer to 5:30 p.m..
So why did that happen? It is unclear when senior Defense
officials authorized the National Guard to deploy. The Defense
Department's public timeline states that Army Secretary
McCarthy directed the D.C. National Guard to mobilize at 3:04
p.m. But according to the timeline the National Guard provided
to the Committee, a Senate briefing from Major General Walker,
Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, the instruction
to deploy did not arrive until 5:08 p.m. We need to know why
the Pentagon took so long to deploy the National Guard.
According to the former Chief of Capitol Police and Acting
Chief of D.C. Police and Major General Walker, the delay was
due in part to concerns about the ``optics'' of the National
Guard at the Capitol. We need to know what role, if any, optics
played in the delay to provide much-needed assistance to U.S.
Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to
protect the Capitol and to get people out of the Capitol.
By hearing from representatives of the Federal agencies
responsible for the intelligence and the National Guard today,
we expect to get clear answers to these open questions.
Answering these questions is critical to our understanding of
where the breakdowns occurred on and before January 6th, and
only by understanding where the breakdowns occurred can we make
the changes necessary to ensure that something like January 6th
never happens again. That is our objective here with this
oversight mission.
Again, I appreciate the fact that we have been able to keep
the politics out of this and focus on the facts and be
objective. We have to continue to do that. I look forward to
another constructive hearing today.
Thanks to our witnesses for being here. I look forward to
your testimony.
Chairman Peters. The Chair recognize Senator Blunt, Ranking
Member Blunt, for your opening comments.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BLUNT\1\
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairman Peters, and thanks to
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I join my good friend Senator Portman
with my appreciation for where we have headed with this so far
and my hope that we continue to look at the facts and see where
the facts lead us in as much of a nonpartisan way as you can do
in a institution like the U.S. Senate. I am glad to join my
colleagues for today's hearing to learn more about the
decisions and the actions of Federal agencies on January the
6th.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Blunt appears in the Appendix
on page 272.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last week's hearing with the Chief of the Metropolitan
Police force, the former Chief of the Capitol Police, and the
former Sergeants at Arms of the House and the Senate really
left in many ways with more questions than answers. The
witnesses could not agree on some of the basics of the
timeline. I believe we learned at that hearing that the
structure and the practice of the Capitol Police Board, which I
previously questioned, in fact, asked for a Government
Accountability Office (GAO) study that was issued in 2017, just
simply delayed the response and proved to be ill-suited for an
emergency on the 6th.
Today I hope to learn if the failure of Capitol security
leaders was compounded by officials at the Department of
Defense, who did not act quickly enough to take the situation
seriously enough.
I also hope to explore if the failure to alert the
leadership of the U.S. Capitol Police or the Metropolitan
Police Department of the FBI's Norfolk Situational Information
Report (SIR), which warned of ``war'' at the Capitol--and I
understand that that information was raw and unverified, but
should it make us consider changes in the information-sharing
process that we pursue in this structure.
All of the agencies participating in these hearing at the
most fundamental level exist to uphold and protect the rights
of Americans and to protect our form of government. January 6th
revealed weaknesses in our intelligence agencies, our law
enforcement agencies, and elements of Defense agencies. It
would be a mistake for the leadership of those agencies to
think it was only a failure of the U.S. Capitol Police
leadership or the Capitol Police Board that produced the
terrible result we saw that day.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, and,
again, thanks for holding this hearing, Chairman Peters.
Chairman Peters. It is now my privilege to introduce each
of the witnesses that we will be hearing from here today, and,
again, thank you for your willingness to be with us.
Our first witness today is Melissa Smislova. Ms. Smislova
is currently the Acting Under Secretary for the Office of
Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) at the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. Ms. Smislova is the Principal Adviser to the
Secretary of Homeland Security and the Deputy Secretary of
Homeland Security for coordinating with law enforcement
officials and intelligence to respond to terrorism and other
threats that the Nation faces. She assumed this role on January
20, 2021. Prior to that date and on January 6th, Ms. Smislova
was the Deputy Under Secretary of the Office of Intelligence
and Analysis. Prior to joining DHS, she spent almost 20 years
in the field of intelligence analysis, which included time at
the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Welcome.
Our second witness is Jill Sanborn. Since January 2020, Ms.
Sanborn has served as the Assistant Director of the FBI's
Counterterrorism Division where she helps lead the FBI's
efforts to provide information on terrorists and track down
known terrorists worldwide. Ms. Sanborn first joined the FBI in
1998 and was assigned to the Phoenix Field Office. Prior to
becoming Assistant Director, Ms. Sanborn served as the Special
Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Minneapolis FBI Field Office, was
detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA's)
Counterterrorism Center, and worked in both the Washington and
Los Angeles Field Offices. Welcome.
Our third witness is Robert Salesses. Mr. Salesses is
currently performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security, which he
began on January 20, 2021. Prior to this and on January 6,
2021, he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Homeland Defense Integration and Defense Support of Civil
Authorities (DSCA). In this role, Mr. Salesses worked closely
with Federal, State, and local leadership, law enforcement,
public health, and emergency management to oversee DOD's
response to national emergency operations in support of civil
authorities, including the deployment of the National Guard.
Mr. Salesses was appointed to the Senior Executive Service
(SES) in 2005. He was awarded the Presidential Rank Award at
the rank of Meritorious Executive for his decisive leadership
and program management skills and his contributions to the
National Response Plan and the National Strategy for Homeland
Security. Welcome.
Our final witness today is Major General William Walker,
the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard. In this
role, General Walker is responsible for the strategic
leadership, training, readiness, operational employment, and
performance Mead of the Army and Air Force components of the
D.C. National Guard. He reports to the Secretary of the Army
and is charged with ensuring units are manned, trained,
equipped, and ready for war and any national emergency. For 30
years General Walker served as both a National Guardsman and a
Special Agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA). Welcome, General.
Chairwoman Klobuchar, those are our witnesses for today.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman
Peters.
If the witnesses could now please stand and raise your
right hand. Do you swear that the testimony that you will give
before the Committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Salesses. I do.
Ms. Smislova. I do.
Ms. Sanborn. I do.
General Walker. I do.
Thank you. You can be seated, and I will turn it back over
to Chairman Peters.
Chairman Peters. I think we will now begin Mr. Salesses for
your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT G. SALESSES,\1\ SENIOR OFFICIAL PERFORMING
THE DUTIES OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE AND
GLOBAL SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Salesses. Thank you, Chairman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Salesses appears in the Appendix
on page 273.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Peters, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Members
Portman and Blunt, distinguished Members of the Committees,
thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on
the Department of Defense's support of civilian law enforcement
agencies in securing the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
One of DOD's missions is to support civil authorities,
including civilian law enforcement organizations. DOD
frequently provides this support during planned major events,
like the Presidential Inauguration and State of the Union
addresses.
Due to the unique nature of the District of Columbia in
which numerous governmental organizations exercise a range of
jurisdictional authority, ensuring safety and security is the
responsibility of the D.C. Government, the U.S. Secret Service
(USSS), the U.S. Park Police (USPP), the Marshals Service, the
Capitol Police, the Federal Protective Service (FPS), and other
civilian law enforcement organizations. DOD provides support to
these civilian law enforcement agencies when requested based on
their assessment of the support required.
Prior to the attack of January 6th, DOD worked closely with
Federal law enforcement and D.C. Government partners to
determine if they anticipated a need for any DOD or D.C.
National Guard support related to the planned protests. On
December 31st, the Commanding General of the D.C. National
Guard received a letter from the D.C. Government requesting
National Guard support for the D.C. Metro Police at 30 traffic
control points and six Metro stations and to make available the
D.C. National Guard's Civil Support Team to support D.C. Fire
and Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
Over the weekend of January 2nd and 3rd, my staff contacted
the Secret Service, the Park Police, the Marshals Service, the
FBI, the Capitol Police to determine if they planned to request
DOD assistance. None of these law enforcement agencies
indicated a need for DOD or D.C. National Guard support.
After consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ),
the Acting Secretary of Defense approved the D.C. Government
request for National Guard personnel to support 30 traffic
control points and six Metro stations from January 5th to the
6th. The Acting Secretary also authorized a 40-person Quick
Reaction Force (QRF) to be readied at Joint Base Andrews.
On January 5th, the Acting Secretary of Defense and the
Secretary of the Army received a letter from the Mayor of D.C.
stating, ``MPD is prepared'' and ``coordinated with its Federal
partners, namely the Park Police, the Capitol Police, and the
Secret Service.''
Based on these communications with Federal and local
civilian authorities, DOD determined that no additional
military support was required on January 5th and 6th. DOD has
detailed the events of January 6, 2021 in a memorandum
published on defense.gov. I will provide a summary of those key
events.
After the U.S. Capitol Police ordered the evacuation of the
Capitol Complex, the Secretary of the Army and the Commanding
General of the D.C. National Guard received calls shortly
before 2 p.m. from the Mayor of D.C. and the Capitol Police
Chief, respectively. At approximately 2:30 p.m., the Secretary
of the Army met with the Acting Secretary of Defense and other
senior leaders of the Defense Department.
After this meeting, the Acting Secretary of Defense
determined that all available forces of the D.C. National Guard
were required to reinforce the D.C. Metropolitan Police and the
U.S. Capitol Police and ordered the full mobilization of the
D.C. National Guard at 3:04 p.m.
During this period, Major General Walker, the Commanding
General of the D.C. National Guard, recalled and made ready the
D.C. National Guard forces at the National Guard Armory for
deployment to the Capitol Complex.
After reviewing the D.C. National Guard's missions,
equipping, and responsibilities to be performed at the Capitol
Complex in support of the Metropolitan Police and Capitol
Police, and conferring with the D.C. Metropolitan Police at
their headquarters at 4:10 p.m., the Secretary of the Army
received the Acting Secretary of Defense's approval at 4:32
p.m. and ordered the D.C. National Guard forces to depart the
Armory for the Capitol Complex.
DOD continued to deploy National Guard forces through the
evening to support the U.S. Capitol. By 9 p.m. on January 7th,
1,100 National Guard personnel had arrived at the Capitol; by 9
p.m. on January 8th, 1,800 National Guard personnel had arrived
at the Capitol. By January 10th, 6,000 National Guard personnel
were at the Capitol providing security.
DOD continues to support efforts to protect the safety and
security of the U.S. Capitol and provide support to our
civilian law enforcement partners. From January 9th through the
Inauguration, DOD provided nearly 25,000 National Guard
personnel to support security in Washington, D.C. Today there
are approximately 4,900 National Guard personnel supporting
Capitol Police and 500 supporting the Metropolitan Police.
Going forward, the Department of Defense is committed to
working closely with our Federal, State, and local law
enforcement partners, the D.C. Government, and the Congress to
ensure that we learn from this event and take all necessary
actions to respond and ensure an attack on our Nation's capital
never happens again.
Chairman Peters, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Members
Portman, and Blunt, distinguished Members of the Committees,
thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
Thank you for your continued commitment and support of the men
and women of the Department of Defense.
Chairman Peters. Ms. Smislova, you are now recognized for
your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF MELISSA SMISLOVA,\1\ ACTING UNDER SECRETARY,
OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Smislova. Thank you, Senator. Good morning.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Smislova appears in the Appendix
on page 282.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Peters, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member
Portman, Ranking Member Blunt, and other distinguished
Senators, thank you for the opportunity for me to testify with
you today.
I want to start with saying I am deeply saddened by the
terrifying events that you, your staff, your loved ones, and
others experienced on January 6th. The country, myself
included, watched in horror as our Capitol was attacked.
I am here today as the Acting Under Secretary for the
Office of Intelligence and Analysis, at DHS. I am a career
intelligence professional of over 35 years. I am honored to
have this opportunity to lead I&A. I have great faith in the
workforce and in our mission, which is to focus on a range of
homeland threats, including domestic terrorism, and ensuring
that our partners across State, local, private sector have the
information they need.
Before I summarize the actions my office took before
January 6th, I do want to say I am deeply concerned that,
despite our best efforts, they did not lead to an operational
response to prepare and defend the U.S. Capitol.
Throughout the 2020 election period and the Presidential
transition, I&A produced numerous strategic assessments about
the potential for election-related violence from domestic
violent extremists (DVE). In 15 unclassified assessments, I&A
discussed the heightened threat environment and the potential
for domestic violent extremists to mobilize quickly and attack
large gatherings or government buildings.
These products were intended to increase awareness about
the volatile threat environment and enhance both policy and
operational planning. They were shared broadly with all levels
of government, law enforcement partners, critical
infrastructure, including through fusion centers nationwide. I
will highlight a few products and engagements.
In August, I&A published an assessment on physical threats
stemming from the 2020 election, in which we assessed
ideologically motivated violent extremists and other violent
actors could quickly mobilize to threaten or engage in violence
against election or campaign-related targets in response to
perceived partisan and policy-based grievances.
In October, DHS released its first publicly available
Homeland Threat Assessment, which stated racially and
ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically white
supremacists, would remain the most persistent and lethal
threat in the homeland. The assessment also emphasized the
breadth of the domestic violent extremism threat, including the
heightened threats from election-related violence.
A week before the attack, on December 30th, I&A co-authored
an intelligence product with the FBI and the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) highlighting persistent threats
to government facilities and law enforcement, noting that
perceptions of the outcome of the election could mobilize some
extremists to commit violence in the coming months.
Additionally, I&A proactively conducted briefings and
stakeholder calls before and after the election and leading up
to January 6th to share that information.
Moving forward, I want to underscore the Department is
prioritizing combating domestic terrorism. Specifically, in I&A
we are working very closely with our DHS colleagues in the
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office, Privacy Office, and
our own Intelligence Oversight Office to carefully examine how
we can better address the complex and evolving threat in a
manner consistent with the Constitution and U.S. law. My office
is committed to developing more expertise on domestic
terrorism, improving our analysis of social media to better
characterize the threat, and ensuring our assessments are
received and understood by key decisionmakers.
Additionally, the Department has taken these steps since
January 6th. In late January, DHS issued our first National
Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin on domestic
terrorism. It warned domestic violent extremists may be
emboldened to act in the wake of the U.S. Capitol breach.
Domestic violent extremists, which span a diverse set of
ideological actors, including racially and ethnically motivated
extremists, will continue to exploit lawful, constitutionally
protected protests and other events to pursue criminal behavior
and commit acts of violence.
Also for the first time, Secretary Mayorkas designated
domestic violent extremists as a national priority area within
the Department's Homeland Security Grant.
Let me close by saying that my colleagues at I&A and across
DHS are unwavering in our commitment to ensuring the Department
is well positioned to combat this evolving threat and protect
the American people.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
welcome your questions.
Chairman Peters. Thank you.
Ms. Sanborn, you are now recognized for your opening
comments.
TESTIMONY OF JILL SANBORN,\1\ ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Ms. Sanborn. Good morning, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking
Member Blunt, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Portman, and
Members of the Committees. Thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Sanborn appears in the Appendix
on page 287.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My name is Jill Sanborn, and I am the Assistant Director
for the Counterterrorism Division within the FBI. It is always
an honor to be here with you in the Senate. For those of you
that I have not met or you do not know, I actually started my
career in public service as a Senate page in 1987 thanks to a
sponsorship from my home Senator, Senator Max Baucus.
I want to start by offering my condolences to all of you
who had to endure up close and personally the violence and
destruction that occurred on January 6. The siege on the
Capitol Complex while you were carrying out your duties as our
elected representatives was not just unacceptable and
disturbing; it was criminal.
I also want to offer condolences to our partners at U.S.
Capitol Police for the loss of one of their brothers, Officer
Sicknick. This is a loss to us all in law enforcement.
Violence designed to intimidate the population and
influence the government is exactly what the FBI's
Counterterrorism Division was designed to combat. The men and
women of the FBI are not only dedicated to identifying and
bringing to justice the individuals involved in the attack on
January 6th, but also, and equally as important--and let me
stress this--we are committed to working to prevent something
like this from ever happening again.
Over the last two months, Americans, the Americans you
represent, from across the country have sent in over 200,000
digital media tips and reported more than 30,000 leads to our
National Threat Operations Center. With this support, we have
identified hundreds of people involved in the attack and
arrested more than 300, with more and more arrests every day.
I want to reiterate something the Director mentioned to
some of your colleagues yesterday. As Americans, we are all
victims of this assault, and the American people deserve
nothing less than our commitment to see this investigation
through and to protect them from acts of violence like this in
the future.
The FBI's number one priority is preventing acts of
terrorism. The greatest threat we face is the threat posed by
lone actors, both domestic violent extremists and what we refer
to as the ``homegrown violent extremists'' (HVE). These actors
are especially challenging for law enforcement because, by
definition, their insular nature makes them particularly
difficult to identify and disrupt before they have an
opportunity to act.
The FBI has been investigating domestic terrorism
throughout our organization's history. However, today's threat
is different than it was 100 years ago and continues to evolve.
Between 2015 and 2020, racially or ethnically motivated violent
extremists were responsible for the most lethal domestic
terrorism threat. In fact, 2019 was the most lethal year for
domestic violent extremist attacks since the Oklahoma City
bombing in 1995.
However, in 2020, three of the four fatal domestic violent
extremist attacks were perpetrated by what we call
``antigovernment or anti-authority violent extremists.'' One of
those attacks was perpetrated by an anarchist violent extremist
in Portland, and, in fact, this was the first fatal anarchist
violent extremist attack in over 20 years.
2020 also marked the first year since 2011 that there were
no fatal attacks committed by the racially or ethnically
motivated violent extremists advocating for the superiority of
the white race. I think all of those explain how the threat is
persistent and evolving.
Looking forward, we assess the domestic violent extremist
threat will continue to pose an elevated threat of violence to
the United States. We expect racially or ethnically motivated
violent extremists and antigovernment, anti-authority violent
extremists will very likely pose the greatest domestic
terrorism threats throughout 2021 and, in fact, leading into
2022.
Regardless of the specific perpetrator, the domestic
terrorism threat remains persistent, and that is why we must
remain focused on countering it. I want to take this
opportunity to reemphasize that the FBI's mission to uphold the
Constitution and protect the American people is both dual and
simultaneous and not contradictory. One does not come at the
expense of the other. That said, when a person crosses a line
from expressing beliefs to violating Federal law and endangers
the communities we serve, we aggressively pursue those threats.
Before closing, I want to mention the importance of
partnerships in the counterterrorism fight. We simply cannot be
successful without them. Our investigations and disruptions
rely on these partnerships, and they represent American lives
saved in communities around the United States.
For instance, in fiscal year (FY) 2020 alone, your Joint
Terrorism Task Force (JTTFs) across the United States arrested
235 terrorism subjects. We also continue to expand our
partnerships in academia, private sector, and within the
communities we serve. This is critical because nearly half of
our cases are predicated on tips and leads from the community
and our law enforcement partners.
We in law enforcement cannot and will not tolerate
individuals who use the First Amendment as a guise to incite
violence. That is true now as we work hard to hold those
accountable involved in the events on January 6th, just as it
was last summer when individuals exploited peaceful protests as
cover for their own violence and disruption. When violent
extremists utilize explosive devices, attack government
facilities and businesses, or target law enforcement officers,
the FBI investigates those unlawful acts, regardless of the
underlying ideological motivation.
At the FBI we work every threat with the same level of
rigor and dedication, and that is what I hope you take away
from my testimony today.
Thank you again for the opportunity to talk with you about
the hard work our folks and our partners are doing every day to
keep the country safe. We are grateful for the support that you
have provided and continue to provide the men and women of the
FBI.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Chairman Peters. Thank you.
General Walker, you are now recognized for your opening
statement.
TESTIMONY OF MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM J. WALKER,\1\ USA COMMANDING
GENERAL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NATIONAL GUARD
General Walker. Good morning, Chairman Peters, Chairwoman
Klobuchar, Ranking Members Portman and Blunt, and Members of
the Committees. I am Major General William Walker, the
Commanding General for the District of Columbia National Guard,
affectionately known as ``Capitol Guardians.'' I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the events of
January 6th--a dark chapter in our Nation's history.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Major General Walker appears in the
Appendix on page 292.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was personally sickened by the violence and destruction I
witnessed that fateful day and the physical and mental harm
that came to U.S. Capitol Police officers and Metropolitan
Police Department officers, some of whom I met with later that
evening and I could see the injuries that they sustained. It is
my hope that my recollection of the events and my presentation
of the facts as I know them will help your Committees in its
investigation and prevent such tragic events from ever
occurring again.
First, I think it is critical to understand what the
District of Columbia National Guard's mission was on January
6th, to include what civilian agency we were supporting and how
requests for support of other civilian authorities were
handled.
On December 31, 2020, the District of Columbia National
Guard received written requests from the District of Columbia
Mayor, Muriel Bowser, and her Director of Homeland Security and
Emergency Management, Dr. Christopher Rodriguez. The requests
sought National Guard support for traffic control and crowd
management for planned demonstrations in the District from
January 5 through January 6, 2021.
After conducting mission analysis to support the District's
request, I sent a letter to the Secretary of the Army, Ryan
McCarthy, on January 1st, requesting his approval. I received
that approval in a letter dated January 5th granting support of
the Metropolitan Police Department with 320 Guardsmen personnel
to include a 40-person Quick Reaction Force.
The District of Columbia National Guard provides support to
the Metropolitan Police Department, the United States Park
Police, the United States Secret Service, and other Federal and
District law enforcement agencies in response to planned
rallies, marches, protests, and other large-scale First
Amendment activity on a routine basis.
A standard component of such support is the stand-up of an
offsite Quick Reaction Force, an element of Guardsmen held in
reserve with civil disturbance response equipment--helmets,
shields, batons, et cetera. They are postured to quickly
respond to an urgent and immediate need for assistance by civil
authorities. The Secretary of the Army's January 5th letter to
me withheld that authority for me to employ the Quick Reaction
Force.
Additionally, the Secretary of the Army's memorandum to me
required that a ``concept of operation'' (CONOP) be submitted
to him before the employment of the Quick Reaction Force. I
found that requirement to be unusual as was the requirement to
seek approval to move Guardsmen supporting the Metropolitan
Police Department to move from one traffic control point to
another.
At 1:30 p.m. on January 6th, we watched as the Metropolitan
Police Department began to deploy officers to support the
Capitol Police. In doing so, the officers began to withdraw
from the traffic control points that were jointly manned with
District of Columbia Guardsmen.
At 1:49 p.m., I received a frantic call from then-Chief of
United States Capitol Police Steven Sund, where he informed me
that the security perimeter of the United States Capitol had
been breached by hostile rioters. Chief Sund, his voice
cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire
emergency at the Capitol, and he requested the immediate
assistance of as many available National Guardsmen that I could
muster.
Immediately after that 1:49 p.m. call, I alerted the U.S.
Army senior leadership of the request. The approval for Chief
Sund's request would eventually come from the Acting Secretary
of Defense and be relayed to me by Army senior leaders at 5:08
p.m.--about 3 hours and 19 minutes later. I already had
Guardsmen on buses at the Armory ready to move to the Capitol.
Consequently, at 5:20 p.m.--in less than 20 minutes--the
District of Columbia National Guard arrived at the Capitol and
were being sworn in by the United States Capitol Police. We
helped to establish the security perimeter at the east side of
the Capitol to facilitate the resumption of the Joint Session
of Congress.
In conclusion, I am grateful for the Guardsmen from the 53
States and territories who supported the District of Columbia
National Guard's Operation Capitol Response and helped to
ensure a peaceful transition of power on January 20th. In
particular, I am grateful for the timely assistance of our
close neighbors from the Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland
National Guard who augmented D.C. National Guard forces in
establishing the security perimeter.
I am honored to lead these citizen soldiers and airmen.
These are your constituents, many of whom have left behind
their families, careers, their education, their businesses, to
help ensure the protection and safety of the United States
Capitol and those who serve in it every day.
Thank you for the opportunity to brief you today, and thank
you for your continued support of the National Guard. I look
forward to any questions you may have.
Thank you again.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, General Walker. Thank you for
your testimony, and, again, I know I speak on behalf of
everybody in this joint Committee room that we fully support
the men and women of the National Guard and appreciate your
work on that day and continue to appreciate the service you are
providing to your country and protecting the Capitol as well as
country. So thank you again.
General Walker, I want to start my questioning by going
back in time a little bit prior to the events on January 6th.
My question is: In June 2020, as violence was escalating during
the summer protests, were you able to immediately receive
approval from the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of
Defense to deploy National Guard to assist law enforcement at
that time?
General Walker. Senator Peters, I was. Yes, sir. The
Secretary of the Army was with me for most of that week. He
came to the Armory. I was in constant communication with him
when we were not together.
Chairman Peters. So you were immediately able to receive
approval in June 2020. From your testimony, I want to be clear,
were you able to immediately receive approval from the
Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense to deploy
the National Guard on January 6th?
General Walker. No, sir.
Chairman Peters. In your opening remarks, you said that a
January 5th memo was unusual. Could you explain to the
Committee why it was unusual? What was the impact of the memo
that you received on January 5th?
General Walker. The memo was unusual in that it required me
to seek authorization from the Secretary of the Army and the
Secretary of Defense to essentially even protect my Guardsmen.
So no civil disturbance equipment could be authorized unless it
came from the Secretary of Defense.
Now, the Secretary of the Army, to his credit, did tell me
that I could have force protection equipment with the
Guardsmen, so we did have helmets, shin guards, vests. We did
have that with us. But that came from the Secretary of the
Army. The Secretary of Defense told me I needed his permission
to escalate to have that kind of protection.
Chairman Peters. That kind of protection, even though you
would be engaged in force protection, to protect your men and
women, before you could do that, you would have to get approval
from the Secretary of Defense?
General Walker. The memo from the Secretary of Defense made
clear that I needed his permission to have--so what it says,
``Without my personal authorization, the District of Columbia
National Guard is not authorized the following: to be issued
weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or ballistic protection
equipment such as helmets and body armor.''
Now, again, to be clear, the Secretary of the Army told me
to go ahead and issue that equipment. We never were going to
have weapons or ammunition, and we no longer have bayonets. But
we do have ballistic protection equipment--helmets, body
armor--and so I did have that with each Guardsman.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, General. But that was unusual,
as you mentioned, to have that kind of request. You were on the
January 6th phone call at 2:30 p.m. that we heard in our
previous hearing where the Chief of Capitol Police was making
an urgent appeal for help, and we heard that the D.C. Metro
Police Chief said it was a tepid response, he was shocked by
it.
What happened on that call? What was your recollection of
the call? And the assessment of the two individuals I
mentioned, was that your assessment as well?
General Walker. Yes, sir. So that call came in. We actually
helped facilitate it. The Deputy Mayor from the District of
Columbia, Dr. Rodriguez, Chief Contee, Chief Sund later joined
the conversation, and we dialed in the senior leadership of the
U.S. Army. At that time, Chief Contee and Chief Sund
passionately pleaded for District of Columbia National Guard to
get to the Capitol with all deliberate speed.
The Army senior leaders did not think that it looked good,
it would be a good optic. They further stated that it could
incite the crowd. Their best military advice would be to the
Secretary of the Army, who could not get on the call--we wanted
the Secretary of the Army to join the call, but he was not
available. We were told that he was with the Secretary of
Defense and not available. But the Army senior leadership
expressed to Chief Contee, Chief Sund, Dr. Mitchell, the Deputy
Mayor, and others on the call that it would not be their best
military advice to have uniformed Guardsmen on the Capitol.
Chairman Peters. During the call, you are saying that
optics was raised on that call specifically. I want to go back
to the question I started. You said that you were able to get
immediate authorization in the summer of 2020 during those
protests. General Walker, was the issue of optics ever brought
up by Army leadership when the D.C. National Guard was deployed
during the summer of 2020? Was that discussed?
General Walker. It was never discussed the week of June. It
was never discussed July 4th when we were supporting the city.
It was never discussed August 28th when we supported the city.
Chairman Peters. Did you think that was unusual?
General Walker. I did.
Chairman Peters. Let us put it in context. In your opening
statement, you mentioned the National Guard troops that were
ready to go. You had them back at the Armory. How many folks
were in the Armory ready to go once the order was given? At
what time were they ready to go?
General Walker. I had them ready to go shortly after the
phone call, so at 1500 I directed that the Quick Reaction Force
that was based on Andrews Air Force Base leave the base, get to
the Armory at all deliberate speed. I had a police escort bring
them to the Armory. They returned to the Armory in about 20
minutes, so we had them sit there waiting. Then in anticipation
of a green light, a go, we put Guardsmen on buses. We brought
them inside the Armory so nobody would see them putting on the
equipment and getting on the buses. Then we waited to get the
approval, and that is why we were able to get to the Capitol in
about 18 minutes.
Chairman Peters. What time were they on the buses ready to
go? Do you recall?
General Walker. Before 5 p.m. But at 5 p.m. I decided,
there has to be an approval coming, so get on the buses, get
the equipment on, get on the buses, and just wait. Then a few
minutes after that, we did get the approval. I was on a secure
videoconference when the Army leadership conveyed to me that
the Secretary of Defense had authorized the employment of the
National Guard at the Capitol. My timeline has 1708--5:08 p.m.
is when we wrote down that we had approval, and that was about
eight people in the office with me when I got that approval.
Chairman Peters. How many Guardsmen were ready? You said
right immediately--earlier in the afternoon----
General Walker. It was about 155.
Chairman Peters. You could have sent 155 much earlier. What
would have been the impact of sending those 155 right around
that 2 p.m. timeframe?
General Walker. Based on my experience with the summer, I
have 39 years in the National Guard. I was in the Florida
Guard, Hurricane Andrew. I have been involved in civil
disturbances. I believe that number could have made a
difference. We could have helped extend the perimeter and
helped push back the crowd.
Chairman Peters. Ms. Sanborn and Ms. Smislova, last week we
heard from former law enforcement officials who stated that a
lack of intelligence reporting was the main reason for Capitol
Police not being fully prepared for the January 6th attack. My
question to both of you, yes or no: Would you agree that the
intelligence community failed to sufficiently identify the
threat and warn the Capitol Police of a plot to breach the
Capitol, a plot that was planned in public and announced in
advance in a number of open sources?
Ms. Sanborn. I think this is on. I will start. I would not
necessarily categorize it that way, sir. But I will tell you, I
think you have heard us say before there is not an agent that
would not want more tools in their toolbox. There is not an
analyst that would not want more intelligence, and I think I
would just paint a quick picture for you the challenges we
faced are the immense amount of rhetoric out there and what we
are trying to separate is aspirational from intent and combine
in, and in order to get to that intent, we are really thinking
about private communications and oftentimes encryption.
I would say that what we were faced with is the challenge
of the amount of data and then really trying to find, because
of the volume and because of private communications, intent
that then would have given us the intelligence picture
potentially to shed light on what some of the plans and
intentions, indicators and warnings, as our military folks
might say.
Chairman Peters. Ms. Smislova, quickly please.
Ms. Smislova. Yes, sir. I will defer to you, Senator, your
colleagues, and other oversight entities such as this one to
actually determine what went wrong on January 6th. I do not
feel I am empowered or have enough information to declare
whether or not this is an intelligence failure.
I do know, however, it was not a success, and we will do
everything we can to make sure that what we know is better
distributed and understood by our partners. To echo the
Bureau's point, we will also do more to better understand how
we can identify the next steps that we see on social media with
this particular threat.
Chairman Peters. Clearly, we have to do a much better job,
and I am sure this will be explored in depth in questioning
from my colleagues here.
Chairwoman Klobuchar.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Chairman.
I want to start by asking you the same questions I asked
our witnesses last week, and that is, based on what you know
now, including the recent Justice Department indictments, do
you agree there is clear evidence that supports the conclusion
that there were those who planned and coordinated the attack on
the Capitol on January 6th? Does everyone agree with that? Yes?
No?
[Witnesses nodding heads.]
Ms. Sanborn. We are seeing indications from our charging
documents of people that coalesced together before and made
some plans.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. So everyone is a yes on this?
Does someone want to say if they are a no? I do not want to
call on everyone. Are you all a yes?
Ms. Smislova. Yes.
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Then would you agree that it
involved white supremacists and extremist groups, the planning?
Is everyone a yes on that?
Ms. Sanborn. Ma'am, I would just say that we are seeing a
wide range of involvement and still a lot left to be
identified, a lot of----
Chairwoman Klobuchar. No. Does it involve white
supremacists and--that is what I am asking--extremist groups?
Ms. Sanborn. Some.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Was the event not planned by Antifa?
Ms. Sanborn. At this point we have not identified a
specific individual that we have charged associating or self-
identifying with Antifa.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Thank you. Would you all agree
that what happened was a highly dangerous situation that had
the potential to be much worse if it was not for the heroic
actions of the front-line officers?
Ms. Smislova. Yes.
Ms. Sanborn. Yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. All right. General Walker,
I am going to start with you. I was not going to start here,
but I am after what I just heard. Chief Contee had said that he
was stunned at the response from the Department of the Army
when former Police Chief Sund requested assistance from the
Guard. What is your reaction to what Contee said? Were you
frustrated on that call as well?
General Walker. Yes, I was, Senator Klobuchar. I was
frustrated. I was just as stunned as everybody else on the
call.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I understand--and correct me if I am
wrong--that with the National Guard it is much better to
prepare them and call them into action and have a plan, which I
know that I have heard from Mr. Salesses that people tried to
do--they called the Chief, they called people and said, ``Do
you want to have the Guard mobilized?'' There was a discussion
between you and Sund leading up to January 6th in which this
was discussed, and you did not get a clear direction to have
them mobilized. Is that correct?
General Walker. Yes, ma'am. I talked to Chief Sund on
Sunday. I talked to him Saturday and Sunday. We talk. We are
friends. I have known him for a long time. So on Sunday, I
asked him, ``Are you going to request D.C. National Guard help?
If you do, I need it in writing.'' It has to be formal because
the Secretary of Defense has to approve it. He told me he was
not allowed to request the support, and I asked him if he
wanted me to share that, and he said, ``No. I cannot even ask
you for the support,'' is what he told me. But he did say,
``But if I do call you, will you be able to support me?'' I
said, ``Yes, but I have to get approval from the Secretary of
the Army and ultimately the Secretary of Defense because it is
a Federal request.''
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Exactly. As we have heard from Chief
Sund last week, he had been denied by the Sergeant at Arms, and
that is a subject for last week. But the subject for today is,
given all that, and we know we would have been in much better
shape if they had been called in ahead and if he had had
authority, that now we are to the day, and it is 2:22 p.m., and
you are on the phone with them, and you are asking for this
authorization--which you felt it was unusual to get. Is that
right?
General Walker. I thought the delay was unusual.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes.
General Walker. We were already in support of the
Metropolitan Police Department, and when the Metropolitan
Police Department left the traffic control points, what I
wanted to do was take those Guardsmen and move them to the
Capitol immediately. My logic was we would have been in support
of the Metropolitan Police Department who was supporting the
United States Capitol Police at that point.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I just keep imagining the scene. The
whole country, the whole world is seeing this on TV. You have
the police line breached at this moment. You have smashed
windows. You have insurrectionists going through the police
lines. You are on the phone. Everyone is seeing this on TV, and
they are not immediately approving your request. In your recent
testimony, you just said, ``Hey, I could have gotten them on
those buses and ready to go.'' Is that correct?
General Walker. That is correct, Senator.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. As you just testified in response to
Senator Peters, you believe that would have made a difference
to have them at the perimeter at a sooner point, and I know
that the people in charge of Capitol security felt the same.
General Walker. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. And so you could have had them there
earlier, hours earlier, if it had been approved. Then you had
them on the bus, and so they were actually sitting on the bus
for a short period of time--right?--waiting, because you
thought, well, they have to honor the request. Is that how your
head was working, so you actually put them on the bus so they
were ready to go, but you could not let the buses go?
General Walker. Yes, Senator. I just came to the conclusion
that eventually I am going to get approval, and at that point
seconds mattered, minutes mattered. I needed to be ready to get
them there as quick as possible. I already had a District of
Columbia National Guard Military Police vehicle in front of the
bus to help get through any traffic lights. We were there in 18
minutes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Eighteen minutes.
General Walker. I arrived at 1720.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK.
General Walker. Yes, and they were sworn in as soon as they
got there, and they made a difference, according to the Capitol
Police.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. According to a lot of us, and I just
keep thinking of the hours that went by and the people who were
injured and the officers whose lives were changed forever.
A lot has been reported about the Quick Response Force that
was waiting at Andrews Air Force Base to be deployed to D.C.
just in case. Now, that force was set up as additional troops
to support the Guard's traffic control mission as needed. Is
that right?
General Walker. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. The Quick Response Force could not be
deployed to the Capitol immediately once the violence began
because they were not outfitted for riot control. Is that
right?
General Walker. No, ma'am. They were outfitted. The Quick
Reaction Force was District of Columbia Air National Guard,
Security Forces Squadron. Most of those Guardsmen are law
enforcement officers in their civilian positions.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Got it.
General Walker. They were ready to go, and they were
outfitted with all the equipment that they needed.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. They were out at Andrews.
General Walker. They were at Andrews. I just took it upon
myself to move them without permission. I just moved them to
the Armory so they would be closer as well.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Who was on that conversation with
you, you mentioned from the Defense Department? I know who was
on there from the police in D.C.
General Walker. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, he was in
charge of operations for the Army. The Director of the Army
staff was on the call, and Lieutenant General Piatt. There were
other senior civilian leaders from the United States Army, and
other high-ranking general officers were on the call as well.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Do you remember who was mostly
talking about the optics, the questions that Senator Peters
asked you and their concern about that?
General Walker. Yes. During the phone call with the
District of Columbia leaders, the Deputy Mayor, Chief Sund, Dr.
Rodriguez, who was talking about optics, were General Flynn and
General Piatt. They both said it would not be in their best
military advice to advise the Secretary of the Army to have
uniformed Guard's members at the Capitol during the election
confirmation.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Mr. Salesses, could you explain why they would say such a
thing? I know you were not on the call, and you were the one
that they sent here on behalf of the Defense Department, but
you were not on the call. Do you have any idea why this delay
occurred when, as Senator Peters has well pointed out, it did
not occur in other incidences?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, as you point out, I was not on the
calls, any of the calls----
Chairwoman Klobuchar. We know that. That is why I spent my
time talking to someone who was.
Mr. Salesses. Right. However, Senator, in preparation for
the hearing, I have had the opportunity to talk to General
Walker. I have had the opportunity to talk to General Piatt and
other general officers on the Army staff. I have also had the
opportunity to talk to Secretary McCarthy in preparation for
the hearing so that I could understand the details of----
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. If you could answer my question--
there are so many of my colleagues waiting--why this happened.
Mr. Salesses. General Piatt told me yesterday that he did
not say anything about optics.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Maybe he meant he did not use the
word ``optics''? Or are you saying that General Walker, who
just testified that they were concerned about this, is wrong or
that----
Mr. Salesses. General Piatt told me yesterday, Senator,
that he did not use the word ``optics.''
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I will let General Walker answer
this, but I think what he is talking about is the general
concern was that they were more concerned about how this would
appear and it was in their best advice--and I guess what bears
out his testimony is that they did not send the National Guard
there for hours. They did not give the authorization for him as
he waited with his troops to go over to the Capitol.
Mr. Salesses. Senator, in fairness to the Committee,
General Piatt is not a decisionmaker. The only decisionmakers
on the 6th of January were the Secretary of Defense and the
Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy. There was a chain of
command from the Secretary of Defense to Secretary McCarthy to
General Walker. That was the chain of command. There is lots of
staff that is involved in obviously having discussions, but to
be clear, on that day that was the chain of command.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. I think we should give General Walker
a moment to respond here, and then I will be done.
General Walker. Yes, Senator, so the chain of command is
the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the
Army, William Walker, Commanding General, District of Columbia
National Guard.
Can I just make a correction? I said Lieutenant General
Mike Flynn. It was Lieutenant General Charles Flynn.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Got it.
General Walker. I am sorry. I just wanted to correct that.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK.
General Walker. But there were people in the room with me
on that call that heard what they heard.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. We will have to follow up with
more questions. I appreciate your testimony. Thank you.
Chairman Peters. Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized
for your questions.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Chairman Peters, and thanks to
our witnesses.
General Walker, can we continue to talk about your
recollection, if you do not mind? This morning you have
testified that you received this letter from Army Secretary
McCarthy on January 5th, so the day before the attack on the
Capitol. In that letter, did Secretary McCarthy prohibit you
from employing the National Guard's Quick Reaction Force
without his authorization?
General Walker. I have the letter in front of me, and the
Secretary of Defense says that I have to use it as a last
resort. But the Secretary of the Army told me--and I have the
letter--that I could not use the Quick Reaction Force. I will
just read it: ``I withhold authority to approve employment of
the District of Columbia National Guard Quick Reaction Force
and will do so only as a last resort in response to a request
from an appropriate civil authority. I will require a concept
of operation prior to authorizing employment of a Quick
Reaction Force.''
Now, a Quick Reaction Force normally is a commander's tool
to go help either a civilian agency but more typically to help
the National Guardsmen who are out there and need assistance.
Senator Portman. I think it is the very definition of a
Quick Reaction Force to be able to react quickly.
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator Portman. When you have to go through that kind of
an authorization, including coming up with a concept of
operation before the Secretary or, as you say, the Secretary of
Defense--so the Secretary of the Army or the Secretary of
Defense--would approve deployment seems to me to be contrary to
the whole concept of a Quick Reaction Force.
General Walker. Just to be clear, the Secretary of Defense
said I could use it as a last resort.
Senator Portman. Last resort, right.
General Walker. But the Secretary of the Army says that I
could only use it after he gave me permission, and only then
after a concept of operation was----
Senator Portman. Right, and we talked about the chain of
command earlier, so your chain of command is both of these
gentlemen. In other words, you did not have the authority to
deploy that Quick Reaction Force based on either the letter or
the earlier memo that went from the Secretary of Defense--
Acting Secretary of Defense--to the Secretary of the Army. Is
that correct?
General Walker. That is correct, yes, sir.
Senator Portman. I also thought it was odd--and I think you
said it was unusual and very prescriptive--that the January 5th
letter required the Secretary of the Army to approve the
movement of deployed Guardsmen from one traffic control point
to another. Did you find that unusual?
General Walker. In 19 years, I never had that before
happen. So on that day, the Metropolitan Police, as they would
any other day, requested that a traffic control point move one
block over. No traffic was where they were, so they wanted the
traffic control point to move one block. I had to get
permission. I told them, ``I will get back to you.'' I
contacted Lieutenant General Piatt, who contacted the Secretary
of the Army. I had to explain where that traffic control point
was in relationship to the Capitol. Only then did I get
permission to move the three National Guardsmen supporting the
Metropolitan Police Department----
Senator Portman. These are three unarmed National Guardsmen
who were helping with traffic control, in part so that
Metropolitan Police could do other things, and they were not
permitted to move a block away without getting permission from
the Secretary of the Army. Is that true?
General Walker. That is correct.
Senator Portman. Yes. Then in your testimony, you also talk
about riot gear. That January 4th memorandum from Acting
Secretary Miller to the Army Secretary required the personal
approval of the Secretary of Defense for the National Guard to
be issued riot gear. Is that correct?
General Walker. That is correct. But the Secretary of the
Army told me to go ahead and put it in the vehicles, so I give
him credit for that.
Senator Portman. Yes, and you said that earlier. You gave
him credit for saying at least to have it there so it was
accessible.
General Walker. Yes.
Senator Portman. But, still, you could not prepare for a
civil disturbance without getting permission from the Secretary
of the Army and the Secretary of Defense. Is that true?
General Walker. Normally, for a safety and force protection
matter, a commander would be able to authorize his Guardsmen to
protect themselves with a helmet and protective equipment.
Senator Portman. As I said earlier, I am disappointed we do
not have someone from DOD who actually was there at the time. I
think you are being put in a tough position, Mr. Salesses. But,
Mr. Salesses, I have to ask you, why did the Department of
Defense impose these restrictions on General Walker's control
of the National Guard on January 6th?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, Secretary Miller wanted to make the
decisions of how the National Guard was going to be employed on
that day. As you will recall, Senator, the spring events, there
was a number of things that happened during those events that
Secretary Miller, as the Acting Secretary----
Senator Portman. Yes, clearly he wanted to. The question is
why and how unusual--don't you think that is unusual based on
your experience at DOD?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, there was a lot of things that
happened in the spring----
Senator Portman. But don't you think that was unusual?
Mr. Salesses [continuing]. That the Department was
criticized for--sir, if I could, Senator, civil disturbance
operations, that authority rests with the Secretary of Defense.
If somebody was going to make a decision about employing
military members against U.S. citizens in a civil disturbance
operation----
Senator Portman. Let us talk about the Quick Reaction Force
then. Again, you have a lot of experience, your background--we
appreciate your being here. Again, you were not making the
decisions that day. They kind of put you forward here as the
person to answer questions based on your discussions with
individuals. But isn't the purpose of a Quick Reaction Force to
quickly react to unfolding situations?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, it is. It is designed to do that.
Senator Portman. Isn't requiring a pre-submitted concept of
operations antithetical to the idea of an enabling quick
reaction?
Mr. Salesses. Again, Senator, I would call our attention to
the Quick Reaction Force that day was designed to respond to
the traffic control points and the Metro stations. We did not
have a Quick Reaction Force to respond to the events that
unfolded on the Capitol.
Senator Portman. I do not know that that is true. General
Walker, did you not have a Quick Reaction Force as part of the
D.C. Police? I think you did. You had police officers who were
also Guardsmen who were involved in your Quick Reaction Force,
correct?
General Walker. I did.
Senator Portman. Wouldn't they have been appropriate to
respond to the attack on the Capitol?
General Walker. In my opinion, they would have been.
Senator Portman. I do not know. Look, again, I wish we had
the people who were making the decision, Mr. Salesses, and I do
not want to put you in this position, but you are all we have
in terms of talking to DOD today. In your opinion, did the
attack on the Capitol constitute a last resort?
Mr. Salesses. A last resort, you mean an immediate
response, Senator?
Senator Portman. No. Remember, in the letter it said only
as a last resort. Do you think a last resort situation occurred
when there was an attack on the Capitol?
Mr. Salesses. There was certainly a last resort situation
that occurred, Senator.
Senator Portman. Why did it take the Department of Defense
so long to authorize the use of the National Guard in
particular, the use of the QRF?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, I can relay what I have obtained
from my discussions with the personnel that were involved that
day, and if you would like to go through the timeline, or just
answer the question based on why the decisionmakers--in this
case, Secretary McCarthy, if we go through the timeline,
clearly at 2:22 p.m., as has been mentioned today, Secretary
McCarthy at 2:30 p.m., as I pointed out in my oral statement,
went down and saw Secretary Miller at 2:30 p.m. At 3:04 p.m.
Secretary Miller made the decision to mobilize the entire
National Guard. That meant that he was calling in all the
National Guard members that were assigned to the D.C. National
Guard. At 3:04 p.m. that decision was made.
Between that period of time, between 3:04 p.m. and 4:10
p.m., Secretary McCarthy wanted to understand, the dynamics of
the Capitol law with the explosives and the shots fired. He
wanted to understand the employment of how the National Guard
was going to be sent to the Capitol, what their missions were
going to be. Were they going to be clearing buildings? Would
they be doing perimeter security? How would they be equipped?
He wanted to understand how they were going to be armed,
because, obviously, shots had been fired. He was asking a lot
of questions to understand exactly how they were going to be
employed here at the Capitol and how many National Guard
members needed to be employed on the Capitol.
Senator Portman. Let me just say, with all due respect--and
my time is coming to an end--three hours and 19 minutes from
the first call--plea, really, with his voice cracking with
emotion, as the Major General said, you have Chief of Police
Sund saying, ``Help. We need help now.'' Three hours and 19
minutes, and that cannot happen again. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, I do.
Senator Portman. Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. Ranking Member Blunt.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairwoman.
General Walker, if the restrictions on your authorities had
not been put in place by DOD, what would you have done when
Chief Sund called you at 1:49 p.m. on January 6 with an urgent
request for National Guard assistance?
General Walker. I would have immediately pooled all the
Guardsmen that were supporting the Metropolitan Police
Department. They had the gear in the vehicles. I would have had
them assemble in the Armory and then get on buses and go
straight to the Armory and report to the most ranking Capitol
Police officer they saw and take direction.
Let me add this. One of my lieutenant colonels on his own
initiative went to the Capitol anticipating that we were going
to be called. He would have been there, and he met with Deputy
Chief Carroll of the Metropolitan Police Department, who asked
him, ``Where is the National Guard? How come they are not
here?'' This colonel said, ``Well, I am sure they are coming,
and I am here to scout out where they are going to be when they
get here.''
So that was the plan. I would have sent them there
immediately. As soon as I hung up, my next call would have been
to my subordinate commanders, get every single Guardsman in
this building and everybody that is helping the Metropolitan
Police, re-mission them to the Capitol without delay.
Senator Blunt. How quickly do you think you could have had
people here? I think you said a minute ago that the Guard had
moved from Andrews to the Armory here by 3:30 p.m. Is that
right?
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator Blunt. How quickly was the colonel here that was--
--
General Walker. He came with the police, so----
Senator Blunt. He was here immediately.
General Walker. Yes, sir, he was here immediately. When the
Metropolitan Police left some of the traffic control points, my
colonel left with them and came straight to the Capitol,
anticipating that that is where the fire was and that fire
needed to be put out.
Senator Blunt. There certainly was concern here
immediately. In fact, yesterday I saw a message that I sent Mr.
Elder, who was the Director of the Rules Committee for me when
I was Chairman at the time, and the quote on that text message,
was: ``Could this information about the Defense Department and
the National Guard possibly be true?'' That is 3:09 p.m.,
already wondering where Senator Klobuchar and I and other
Senators were, ``Could it possibly be true that the Defense
Department was not sending the Guard immediately?''
Mr. Salesses, on the January 5th letter, that is described
as Secretary McCarthy relaying new restrictions from the Acting
Secretary of Defense Miller, Christopher Miller. Would that be
accurate? Would those be new instructions? Do you agree that
General Walker had more flexibility before those instructions
than he did after? I think that is a yes or no. Do you agree he
had more flexibility before those instructions than he did
after? That would be one question. Two, would it be fair to say
those were new instructions or not?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, General Walker, in fairness to him,
cannot respond to a civil disturbance operation without the
authority of the Secretary of Defense. So absent these memos,
General Walker would have had to get approval to respond to the
Capitol through the Secretary of Defense.
Senator Blunt. Let us talk about that approval process. I
think you said a minute ago to Senator Portman ``if you would
like to go through the timeline.'' I assume you are talking
about the Department of Defense timeline that I have in front
of me. You mentioned 1504 as one of your reference points. At
1519, or 3:19 p.m., that timeline says, ``Secretary of the Army
phone call with Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi about the
nature of Mayor Bowser's request. Secretary of the Army
explains Acting Secretary of Defense already approved full D.C.
National Guard--``mobilization.'' Would that be right as of
3:19 p.m.?
Mr. Salesses. That would be accurate, but if I could
clarify what mobilization----
Senator Blunt. Let me go one step further. Then I will let
you do that. At 1526, 3:26 p.m., ``Secretary of the Army phone
call with Mayor Bowser and Metropolitan Police Chief relays
that there is no denial of their request and conveys Acting
Secretary of Defense approval of the activation of full
National Guard.''
On your timeline, within seven minutes, one is
mobilization, the other is activation. Go ahead and explain
what those two things mean?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, those words are being used
interchangeably. What Secretary Miller did at 1504 on January
6th was authorize the mobilization or activation of the
National Guard, the D.C. National Guard. All that does, sir, is
provide for the National Guard to be called in from wherever
their homes are to come to the Armory. That is what the
mobilization/activation order was----
Senator Blunt. I wonder if that is what Senator Schumer and
Speaker Pelosi thought it meant. Now, you cannot answer that.
Only they could. I also wonder if that is what Mayor Bowser
thought it meant when they were told at 3:19 p.m. and 3:26 p.m.
that the Guard was being mobilized and the Guard was being
activated. I do not expect you to be able to answer what they
thought. I know I would have assumed that that meant the Guard
was on the way, unless I was specifically told, well, they are
mobilized, but they really will not be there until we make a
decision hours later.
At 4:32 p.m. the Acting Secretary of Defense provides
verbal authorization to re-mission D.C. National Guard to
conduct perimeter and clearance operations. That is 4:32 p.m.
That is an hour and 10 or so minutes later. Is that the moment
when the Guard was told they could move forward?
Mr. Salesses. Yes, Senator, it is.
Senator Blunt. Do you agree with that, General Walker?
General Walker. No, sir. I did not get approval until a
little bit after 5 p.m., and I got that from the Secretary of
the Army, who was relayed to me. I never talked to Secretary of
Defense Miller, and I did not talk to the Secretary of the
Army. Army senior leaders told me at about 1708, 5:08, p.m.,
that the Secretary of Defense has authorized our approval to
support the Capitol.
Mr. Salesses. Senator, if I could, in fairness to General
Walker, too, that is when the Secretary of Defense made the
decision, at 4:32 p.m. As General Walker has pointed out,
because I have seen all the timelines, he was not told that
until 5:08 p.m.
Senator Blunt. How is that possible, Mr. Salesses? Do you
think that the decision in the moment we were in was made at
4:32 p.m. and the person that had to be told was not told for
more than half an hour after the decision was made?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, I think that is an issue. There was
decisions that were being made. There was communications that
needed to take place. Then there was actions that had to be
taken. All of that was happening at simultaneous times by
different individuals, and I think that part of the challenge
is that some of the delayed communications probably put some of
the challenges that we had that day.
Senator Blunt. I would think so. If you have to have the
communication before General Walker and the National Guard can
take the action and the communication does not occur for over
half an hour, that is a significant problem for the future if
we do not figure out how the decision, the communication, and
the action all happen as nearly to the same time as they
possibly can.
Mr. Salesses. I agree, Senator.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Klobuchar
and Chair Peters and our Ranking Members Blunt and Portman, for
this hearing. I want to thank all of our witnesses for being
here today, and I want to thank you all for your service to our
country.
I want to start with a question for Ms. Smislova, please.
It is about a topic that I asked about last week. The Secretary
of Homeland Security has the authority to designate events with
national significance as National Special Security Events
(NSSE), and these designated events receive expanded Federal
support for event security. Factors used to determine National
Special Security Event designations include the attendance of
U.S. officials as well as the size and significance of the
event.
In our hearing last week, the former officials in charge of
security here at the Capitol testified that DHS did not reach
out to U.S. Capitol officials about designating January 6th
Joint Session of Congress as a National Special Security Event.
Ms. Smislova, to your knowledge, did any Department of
Homeland Security officials ever consider or recommend
designating the January 6th Joint Session of Congress as a
National Special Security Event?
Ms. Smislova. Thank you, Senator. No. To my knowledge, no
one at the Department of Homeland Security did consider
designating January 6th as an NSSE. Also, to my knowledge, no
one responsible for protecting the Capitol asked for such a
designation.
Senator Hassan. Right, but when we are talking about an
NSSE, you do not need a request from the Capitol----
Ms. Smislova. You do not. That is correct.
Senator Hassan. DHS could have initiated it. What is the
Department's current policy and process for designating
National Special Security Events? Were there any procedural
issues blocking such a designation in spite of the growing
evidence of intelligence available to Federal security
officials prior to the event?
Ms. Smislova. I am sorry, Senator. I am running currently
the Office of Intelligence and Analysis for DHS. We have a
small role in the NSSE process, but I am not qualified to speak
about the whole process. It is fairly complicated. I am happy
to have Secret Service reach out to you, ma'am, if you would
like me to follow up with that.
Senator Hassan. I think it is really important for us to
understand what the processes are.
Ms. Smislova. Yes.
Senator Hassan. We had, as has been pointed out, the Vice
President, the Vice President-elect, all Members of Congress in
one location at an event where there was clear intelligence
that might turn violent, and there appears to have been no
communication or effort by DHS to designate this in a way that
would have had the security that we are now standing about
stood up ahead of time in an effective way.
Ms. Smislova. Happy to follow back up with you, Ma'am.
Senator Hassan. I would look forward to following up with
you on that.
Ms. Smislova. Yes.
Senator Hassan. I want to turn to Ms. Sanborn now.
According to a recent report, the FBI has currently charged 257
people associated with the events on January 6th. Of the
individuals charged to date in relation to the attacks of
January 6th, how many were already under investigation by the
Bureau?
Ms. Sanborn. Ma'am, I would have to get you the specific
number, but I can only recall from my memory one of the
individuals that was under investigation prior.
Senator Hassan. Was that because the FBI is limited in its
tools or capacity to monitor, charge, or arrest these
individuals prior to January 6th? Was this a manpower issue? I
am just trying to understand, understanding looking back now,
what might have made a difference in being able to move against
some of those individuals sooner.
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, I think that is a great question. I think
it is twofold. It is the complexity of trying to gather the
right intelligence that helps us predict indicators and
warnings, and I spoke earlier about while there is a volume out
there of rhetoric, trying to figure out that intent is very
challenging for us in the intel community because it happens on
private comms and encryption. So that is one aspect.
Then the other aspect is, of the people that we were
investigating, so predicated investigations, we do not
necessarily have the ability to mitigate the threat they might
pose by travel if we do not have a charge. I think you are
tracking that we were aware of some of our subjects that
intended to come here. We took overt action by going and
talking to them and trying to get them to not come, and that
worked in the majority of our already predicated cases.
Senator Hassan. OK. Thank you. I would look forward to
following up with the FBI more about that.
I also have another question for you about the FBI's
information-sharing practices. On January 5th the FBI Norfolk
Field Office issued a report that some extremists were
preparing to travel to Washington and commit acts of violence.
That report eventually made it to a U.S. Capitol Police
analyst, but it did not make it to the former Capitol Police
Chief, Mr. Sund. I think it is important for us to understand
whether this was a failure in information-sharing product or
practice.
What is the standard policy for disseminating reports like
that?
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, ma'am, that is a great question, and I
would just like to segue into that that part of the reason we
were able to get that intelligence report from the Norfolk
office is because we made it a national collection priority for
all 56 field offices to collect whatever they could on the
Joint Session as well as Inauguration. When they collected that
information, they did follow our normal process, and I think we
heard yesterday from the Director, and went above and beyond
that process. They documented it quickly within the Situational
Information Report, and they disseminated it three different
ways--in writing, via email, verbally--and then also put it in
what we call the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP),
which is available to all State and local partners across the
United States.
Senator Hassan. I am trying to understand, though, how it
did not get elevated or communicated to the highest level. Who
was the highest official in the FBI to be informed of the
intelligence?
Ms. Sanborn. So I, similar to Director Wray, found out
about it days after. I think it is very important to also
caveat what that was. It was raw, unvetted information and only
because of the collection message did it get as quickly
elevated to the Washington Field Office and disseminated to the
task force officers. So thousands and thousands of tips come in
just like this one every day, and not all of those get elevated
to senior leadership.
Senator Hassan. Except that this was tips about violence in
the United States Capitol where we were going to have all
Members of Congress, the current Vice President, the Vice
President-elect. And so given the gravity of the threat, it is
very hard for me to understand why somebody did not pick up the
phone. I would like to understand, too, whether any of the
following were informed of the intelligence: the President, the
White House Chief of Staff, the Attorney General of the United
States, the Speaker of the House, or the Senate Majority
Leader.
Ms. Sanborn. Not to my knowledge, ma'am, and I think you
heard the Director say this yesterday, and I echo it 100
percent: Anytime an attack happens, we are going back, and we
are going to figure out what we could have done better and
differently. I echo there are always processes that can be
improved.
Senator Hassan. Look, I will just say this: that one of the
things before a major event that one should always do is figure
out who the leadership is, and they should be talking twice a
day on the phone for the week leading up at least. That is kind
of standard practice, at least in the States that I am familiar
with. It is certainly standard practice for Governors. It is
astounding to me that, even if it is raw intelligence, given
what the stakes were on January 6th, that that kind of sharing
was not routine and that it did not happen.
I hope very much that we will look back at this and develop
kind of standard operating procedures (SOPs) so that the
leadership of security at the Capitol, the leadership of
security at all the various agencies are sharing this kind of
information person to person rather than relying on standard
emails and the like.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Sanborn. I will say that is the purpose of the command
post, and I 100 percent echo your point, which is let us go
back and figure out what we could do differently?
Senator Hassan. OK. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Hassan.
For members of the Rules Committee, we are following the
order set forth by the Homeland Security Committee, how they do
their order. If there are questions about that, that is how we
are doing it today.
Next is Senator Feinstein.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR FEINSTEIN
Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman.
I would like to ask this question: In August 2017, DHS
Office of Intel and Analysis and the Virginia Fusion Center
issued a report days before the violent protests in
Charlottesville, Virginia. The report warned that the protests
could be among the most violent to date. It warned that
anarchistic extremists and white supremacist extremists are
calling on supporters to be prepared for and to instigate
violence at the August 12th rally.
Now, this was very similar to what we saw in the lead-up to
the January 6th insurrection when groups were actively planning
to come to Washington and commit violence. Yet there was no
similar intelligence report by the Department of Homeland
Security for this occasion.
My question is: Why? What happened to change this
procedure?
Ms. Smislova. Yes, Senator, thank you for that question.
Between before the election and then into the Inauguration, I&A
did publish 15 separate unclassified reports that did discuss
specifically that there was a heightened threat environment,
that the threat could come from lone actors or small cells. We
assessed that those that were motivated by concerns about the
election and
grievances associated largely with Coronavirus Disease 2019
(COVID-19) restrictions would also appear to be armed, and we
also warned that they could transition quickly from a peacetime
situation into a violent situation.
I actually in preparation for this hearing did review all
of those reports and was impressed with how well the team did.
They were very well written and very specific. The point,
Senator, is that we thought we had provided that warning. We
did not have anything specific about an attack on the Capitol
to occur on January 6th, so we did not issue a separate report.
In hindsight, we probably should have, but we had just
issued a report on December 30th with our colleagues at FBI and
the National Counterterrorism Center where we had thought,
ma'am, that that was sufficient.
Senator Feinstein. I would like to ask that you make those
reports available to this Committee, please.
Ms. Smislova. Happy to, ma'am.
Senator Feinstein. Also, press reports indicate that Acting
Defense Secretary Christopher Miller issued a memo on January
4th preventing the D.C. National Guard from receiving weapons
or protective gear, interacting with protesters, or employing
riot control agents without his personal authorization. Do you
know of any other instance where a Defense Secretary required
personal authorization before allowing National Guard troops to
respond to an emergency? I would like to put the letter from
Christopher Miller,\1\ Madam Chairman, in the file, if I could.
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\1\ The letter referenced by Senator Feinstein appears in the
Appendix on page 296.
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Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes, without objection.
Senator Feinstein. Could someone answer that question?
Mr. Salesses. Oh, I am sorry, Senator. I will answer that
question. I was waiting.
Senator, I am not aware of another letter from a Secretary,
but, again, based on events in the spring and Secretary Miller
being new to the Department at that time and some of the things
mindful that happened, he issued that direction. That
direction, though, again, I would come back to the point that
in order for National Guard members to deploy in civil
disturbance operations, it requires the Secretary of Defense's
approval. So just to be clear, there is no ability for the
military to respond without the Secretary's approval for civil
disturbance operations.
Senator Feinstein. If I may, Madam Chairman, I am looking
at a memo for Secretary of the Army, employment guidance for
the District of Columbia National Guard, dated January 4, 2021,
I received it, and it responds to a memorandum regarding the
District's request for support for the planned demonstrations
from January 5 to 6, 2021. You are ``authorized to approve the
requested support subject to my guidance below, subject to
consultation.'' Then it points out a number of things that are
not authorized. This letter of January 4th, I would like it to
be in the record, because somewhere there is a problem here. I
have been listening carefully trying to find out what the
problem is. But there were certain reports that just were not
issued, and they were of an intelligence nature, and I am
curious about finding out which ones essentially did what.
If you have any response to that, other reports, and could
let this Committee know, it would be appreciated.
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, ma'am, happy to do so. I think the key
here is--and I think my DHS colleague mentioned this--the
intelligence we had articulated that we knew people were coming
to the D.C. area, we knew there was a possibility they would
come armed and potentially have conflict amongst themselves,
what we lacked--and I think you heard this last week from all
the folks that testified as well--none of us had any
intelligence that suggested individuals were going to storm and
breach the Capitol, and that was the intelligence that we
lacked.
Senator Feinstein. I think that remains to be seen, but I
appreciate the comment, and I think that is what this Committee
has to look for and make a determination whether there was, in
fact, adequate pre-question, pre-interest. There is a record,
and I thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Chairman Peters. Senator Johnson, you are recognized for
your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I get into my line of questioning for today's
subject, Ms. Smislova, I received, sitting here in the hearing,
a press release from Capitol Police that said that ``we have
obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the
Capitol by an identified militia group on Thursday, March
4th.'' Is that a threat that you are aware of?
Ms. Smislova. Senator, we issued a bulletin last night, co-
authored with the FBI, about extremists discussing March 4th
and March 6th. Is that what you are referring to?
Senator Johnson. Yes, and----
Ms. Smislova. It was a Joint Intelligence Bulletin we
released last night around--it was very late. Midnight, I
think? Yes.
Senator Johnson. OK. Again, the threats are ongoing.
Ms. Smislova. Yes.
Senator Johnson. General Walker, to review the timeline, at
1:49 p.m. Chief Sund contacted you. At 2:15 p.m. the Capitol
was breached. I think in your testimony you said you had
available 340 D.C. National Guard troops. Is that correct?
General Walker. Sir, it was actually half of that. So half
were on the streets helping the Metropolitan Police Department.
The other half would have came in to relieve them. But we would
have called them in to come in.
Senator Johnson. OK. So you had 40 in the Quick Reaction
Force, correct?
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator Johnson. So had this all been preapproved by the
Secretary of Defense? I am mindful of the considerations of
having military involved in civil disturbances, and I think
that is part of the issue, some of the blowback that occurred
with the spring instances. How quickly could you have gotten
how many people to the Capitol?
General Walker. Twenty minutes.
Senator Johnson. How many people?
General Walker. One hundred and fifty.
Senator Johnson. OK. I mean, that is important information
to have.
I think, quite honestly, what we need to do here is we need
to completely reconstruct what happened, and I mean completely
reconstruct it. We need to obtain eyewitness testimony from
different vantage points, from different perspectives, and that
is certainly what I have tried to do.
Ms. Sanborn, how many points of confrontation occurred
during the riot? In other words, were these primarily at
chokepoint, doors, windows that were breached, and then in side
the Capitol, again, outside the House chamber? Or was there,
the Capitol is 751 feet long. Was this a 751 long line that
Capitol Police and other law enforcement were battling
protesters?
Ms. Sanborn. Thank you for the question. I think we are
still in the process of gathering that data. Obviously, the
folks that we have charged for breaching and getting inside,
and so we at least know that at some point they go through a
chokepoint. The actual distance of how long that was is still
part of what we are examining, sir.
Senator Johnson. OK, but we have all kinds of video, all
kinds of photographs. You obviously are examining that, and
from that video you have been able to arrest 300 people--300
people have been charged. Eighteen have been charged with
conspiracy, 40 have been arrested for assault of law
enforcement officers. So have you, looking at those videos,
maybe not being able to identify the people, but have you
counted the number of people that you want to identify, for
example, that will probably be charged with assault?
Ms. Sanborn. So we are still doing that, and that number
increases just like the arrests every day, and so far we have
identified hundreds of people that we are trying to still
identify.
Senator Johnson. OK. Again, we have 300 individuals have
been charged; 40 have been charged with assault. Do you expect
the hundreds of people to be charged with assault? Or will
those be disorderly conduct, unlawful entry? Give me some sort
of sense of the extent of this.
Ms. Sanborn. Absolutely. It is a fair question. I think the
charges have ranged from everything from trespassing to
obstruction to definitely assault on Federal officers. We have
a fair number of those. The charges based on the actual
behavior that the individual partook that day definitely vary.
Senator Johnson. How many firearms were confiscated in the
Capitol or on Capitol grounds that day?
Ms. Sanborn. To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on
that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point. But
I do not want to speak on behalf of Metro and Capitol Police,
but to my knowledge, none.
Senator Johnson. So nobody has been charged with an actual
firearm weapon in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds?
Ms. Sanborn. Correct. The closest we came was the vehicle
that had the Molotov cocktails in it, and when we did a search
of that vehicle later on, there was a weapon, but----
Senator Johnson. How many shots were fired that we know of?
Ms. Sanborn. I believe the only shots that were fired were
the ones that resulted in the death of one lady.
Senator Johnson. OK. I appreciate the Chair's comments
about the bipartisan/nonpartisan investigation here seeking out
the truth. That is what I am trying to do. Cognizant of how it
was reacted to by offering an eyewitness account at the last
hearing, I will risk entering another piece of reporting into
the record.\1\ This is from the New York Times. Hopefully that
will be viewed more favorably.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The New York Times article appears in the Appendix on page 300.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The title is, ``A Small Group of Militants' Outsize Role in
the Capitol Attack.'' In that report it says, ``Federal
prosecutors have said members of the Oath Keepers militia group
planned and organized their attack and `put into motion the
violence that overwhelmed the Capitol.'"
The reason I am entering this in the record and read that
quote is it really does seem to align with the eyewitness
account that I read portions of in the record last week. No
conspiracy theory, just an eyewitness account from a
knowledgeable observer. I did not get to the point of the
actual attack, and I want to just read a couple excerpts.
This is the title: ``Provocateurs turn unsuspecting marches
into an invading mob.'' Again, these provocateurs are primarily
white supremacist groups. ``Then, a loud, bellowing shout from
behind: `Forward. Do not retreat. Forward.'"
``Then two other men standing across from one another on
the high granite curbs on either side of the footpath bellowed
variations of, `Forward. Do not dare retreat.' Some made direct
eye contact at people and pointed directly at them, as if
trying to psych them into submitting.''
``A third man standing on a chair also shouting `Forward,'
reached down to grab me by the shoulder and barked, `Don't
retreat. Get back up there.' It wasn't an expression of
enthusiasm or solidarity; it sounded like a military order. It
was not from a wild-eyed kid. This guy was probably in his 50s.
He looked furious with me.''
``Nobody seemed aware the Capitol was physically under
attack. The tear gas caused pandemonium. But there was still no
stampede, and people helped create or widen paths to allow
others to leave the area.''
``Then, from the north, a column of uniformed agile younger
men walked briskly, single file toward the inaugural stand.
They came within two feet of me. Their camouflage uniforms were
clean, neat, and with a pattern I could not identify.''
``These were the disciplined, uniformed column of attackers
I had seen.''
``There were a good three dozen of them moving in a single,
snakelike formation. They were organized. They were
disciplined. They were prepared.''
```We are taking the Capitol,' the first or second
announced.''
```You are going to get arrested,' someone called out.''
Ms. Sanborn, does that tie into with what you are
uncovering as you investigate exactly what happened in the
Capitol that day, that you had these armed militia groups that
had conspired and organized to be there, maybe dozens--we do
not know how many--but that they were organized and knew how to
use the mob to storm the Capitol? Is that kind of what you are
seeing?
Ms. Sanborn. We definitely so far are seeing a mixture of
that, absolutely. We are seeing people that got caught up in
the moment, got caught up in sort of the energy, et cetera, and
made their way into the Capitol. Those are probably the ones
that you are seeing the charges simply of trespassing. Then we
are definitely seeing that portion that you are pointing out,
which is small groups in cells now being charged with
conspiracy that coalesced either onsite or even days or weeks
prior and had sort of an intent that day, and they too probably
caught people up in the energy.
Senator Johnson. So one final comment. I would urge anybody
that criticized me for entering an eyewitness account into the
record last week to please read the eyewitness account to take
a look at actually what the truth is.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Before I call on Senator Merkley, I just want to ask you,
Ms. Sanborn, one thing. These people that were assaulting the
Capitol in military gear and were pinning an officer between a
door and were using bear spray on officers in the Capitol,
would you title them ``provocateurs''?
Ms. Sanborn. Ma'am, it would all depend on the evidence
behind the case, right? So as we are going through and we are
figuring out what actually we know about each individual, it
would just depend on what the facts and what we know
holistically about that to be able to be put a label on it.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Do you think there were some very
serious violent people involved in this insurrection?
Ms. Sanborn. One hundred percent. A lot of officers were
injured and a lot of damage was done.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Would you describe the atmosphere as
``festive''?
Ms. Sanborn. Absolutely not.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Senator Merkley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to
all for your information.
Assistant Secretary Salesses, if I understood your earlier
comment, you thought the quick reaction team was only for
reinforcing assistance to those members of the National Guard
providing traffic control. Did I hear your comment correctly?
Mr. Salesses. Yes, Senator, you did.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Major General Walker, I believe that, if I heard your
comments correctly, that quick reaction team was there to
respond as needed, including protection of the Capitol. Is that
correct?
General Walker. No, Senator. They were actually to provide
support to the Guardsmen out there. What I would have wanted to
do was re-mission them and get them to the Capitol immediately
as a Quick Reaction Force.
Senator Merkley. I see. they were not necessarily planned
to help protect the Capitol, but you would reassign them to
that in that type of emergency?
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator Merkley. OK. Thank you for that clarification.
I was really struck by the complexity of the chain of
command for trying to get a decision for response. It starts
with the Capitol Police Board, which goes to the Chief of the
Capitol Police, Steven Sund, who goes to the Commanding General
of the D.C. National Guard, who goes to the Secretary of Army,
who then consults with people within Department of Army about
whether it is appropriate, which then goes to the Secretary of
Defense, who then consults--Christopher Miller, to decide to
study that, who then gives an order back to the Commanding
General of the D.C. National Guard.
This six-step process seems totally unsuited to the
situation of responding quickly to an emergency. I just wanted
to ask you, Commander Walker, if I am reading this chain of
command correctly? Do you share the view that this is way too
complex for a moment when you need to respond quickly?
General Walker. Senator, it is a longstanding process, but
it can work in minutes. For example, during the first week of
June, the Secretary of the Army was with me. I watched him call
the Secretary of Defense and consult with the Attorney General
and respond back to me with an approval within minutes. It is
an elaborate process, but it does not always have to be when in
extremist circumstances we can get it done over the phone very
quickly.
Senator Merkley. But if I understand right, it is normally
an elaborate process done in advance. In fact, the information
came to you on January 1st. You got back a response on January
5th, so this was before January 6th. But it had this provision
that--this restriction that I think you have testified to--was
unusual, that required reconsultation on January 6th in a
fashion that deeply inhibited the ability to move quickly.
General Walker. That is right, Senator.
Senator Merkley. OK. Thank you.
I wanted to turn to Under Secretary Smislova. You have been
with the Department for how long?
Ms. Smislova. Seventeen years, sir.
Senator Merkley. For 17 years. I think you were the Deputy
Under Secretary on January 6th. Is that correct?
Ms. Smislova. Yes, sir.
Senator Merkley. OK. I was struck by different reports that
came from officials saying that there was a move within the
Department--and I will just quote one formal official report:
``Nobody wanted to write a formal intelligence report about
this in part of the fear that such a report would be very
poorly received by the MAGA folks within DHS.''
To follow this up, Brian Murphy, former head of DHS--and I
do not know. Were you also the Deputy to him as well?
Ms. Smislova. I was one of his deputies, yes, sir.
Senator Merkley. He noted that DHS officials had ordered
him to stay away from the threat of white nationalism, that
Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli also had asked him to modify intel
assessments to ensure that they matched up with public comments
by President Trump to downplay the threat posed by white
supremacists.
In your time at DHS, it is very important that intelligence
is unaffected by politics. It is like the root information. Did
you get a sense that there was kind of a troubling cloud, as
reported in various sources, including from the former head of
DHS, that there was this troubling cloud of political influence
over the quality or the kind of determination of how
intelligence was presented to officials?
Ms. Smislova. I can say that I&A's reports did not change.
We did not change our assessments based on any political
pressure or interference. We did publish the Homeland Threat
Assessment. It is a publicly available document that does state
that white supremacists are the most persistent and lethal
threat to the homeland.
Senator Merkley. Did you ever feel any pressure or receive
any encouragement, even kind of in a less informal way--I am
not talking about a written document--that you needed to be
very careful about clarifying the threat posed by white
extremists?
Ms. Smislova. I did not personally receive that.
Senator Merkley. Do you consider Brian Murphy's report that
that type of pressure was applied to be accurate or inaccurate?
Ms. Smislova. His is a whistleblower complaint, and it is
still being adjudicated.
Senator Merkley. No, I understand, but I am asking you. You
were right there in the leadership. You never got a sense that
there was any type of political influence like he reported
regarding encouragement to downplay----
Ms. Smislova. I did not personally have that influence
pushed upon me, sir.
Senator Merkley. OK. Thank you.
Someone suggested that the reason that there were formal
intelligence assessments regarding earlier events, including
the protests in Portland, but not such a detailed presentation
related to January 6th, was because of this pressure to
downplay to some degree the threat posed by white extremists.
Ms. Smislova. I would like to point out, sir, that the two
instances are very different. Our support during some of the
civil unrest and the protests specifically in Portland were at
the direct request of our own DHS Federal law enforcement
partners, and in that capacity we were reacting to a pattern of
violence that had shown itself for several weeks. Our open-
source team did an excellent job in many instances of providing
specific information that kept those officers safe. They were
reporting things like bricks may be used today as a weapon.
Another day it might be bug spray combined with leaf blowers or
lasers.
Our work, by contrast, leading up to the election and
January 6th is quite different. It is a different kind of
environment. There is not that pattern violence. It is a
different kind of assessment. I do suggest, sir, that it is
impossible to compare the two.
Senator Merkley. Thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Smislova. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator.
The Chair recognizes Senator Sinema for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our
witnesses for being here today.
During last week's hearing, we heard about coordinated
security planning efforts between law enforcement and Federal
partners for January 6th, including areas where planning could
be improved. As part of this conversation, the Committee has
heard about intelligence shared by the FBI Field Office in
Norfolk, Virginia, on January 5th warning of extremists
preparing to travel for ``war.'' We also heard from the former
Chief of U.S. Capitol Police that he never saw this report, and
that on January 6th he knew of no intelligence suggesting there
would be a coordinated violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The head of FBI's Washington Field Office has previously
said publicly that the Bureau did not have intelligence
suggesting the rally would turn violent prior to the January
5th report. However, on January 8th, a podcast from the New
York Times outlined activity across multiple social media
platforms showing coordination between groups ahead of the
January 6th attack. The podcast highlighted social media
conversations about coordinating travel, bringing weapons, and
using language like ``Occupy the Capitol'' and ``The revolution
will come to Washington.''
My first question is for Ms. Sanborn. Was the FBI aware of
these specific conversations on social media?
Ms. Sanborn. To my knowledge, no, ma'am, and I would just
sort of articulate why that is. So under our authorities,
because being mindful of the First Amendment and our dual-
headed mission to uphold the Constitution, we cannot collect
First Amendment-protected activities without sort of the next
step, which is the intent. We would have to have an already
predicated investigation that allowed us access to those comms
and/or a lead or a tip or a report from a community citizen or
a fellow law enforcement partner for us to gather that
information.
Senator Sinema. The FBI does not monitor publicly available
social media conversations?
Ms. Sanborn. Correct, ma'am. It is not within our
authorities.
Senator Sinema. My next question is for Ms. Sanborn and
then Ms. Smislova. Did the preparations for the January 6th
rally follow the typical process for sharing information among
law enforcement entities when confronted by this type of an
event with a high potential for violence? Were there additional
processes implemented to consider that, as Senator Klobuchar
pointed out, this was an event with Congress in session and the
Vice President and Vice President-elect all gathered in one
place?
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, ma'am, so a couple of things we did
different than normal operations is we sent out and made this a
national priority for all of our 56 field offices to actively
go out and ask sources, collect information on any threats that
posed to the National Capital Region (NCR), not only for the
6th but for the Inauguration. That tasking is what led to the
potential collection in the Norfolk Field Office.
Also a step we took that is different than our normal
everyday course of business is both Washington Field Office and
headquarters stood up command posts, so we activated our
National Crisis Coordination Center (NC3), which is a multi-
agency task force that was 24/7 inside the Hoover Building,
inside Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC), and
Washington Field mirrored that in their field office.
Ms. Smislova. Ma'am?
Senator Sinema. Yes?
Ms. Smislova. DHS also, I&A, had been on a heightened
period of alert before the election and then after the
election. We also participated in the command posts in the
Washington Fusion Center. In retrospect, we may have been
better off if we had considered sending out some kind of a
terrorism bulletin, but we did not do that before January 6th.
Senator Sinema. This is a question for both of you. The FBI
Field Offices did have intelligence outlining a threat to
Congress. We know that conversations were happening on publicly
available social media, and DHS was tracking the travel of some
of these suspected radicals.
Given all of these pieces, what in your opinion broke down
and what got in the way of law enforcement properly planning to
meet these publicly articulated threats?
Ms. Sanborn. I will start. I think exactly the processes we
had in place we followed, and I think that is the good news. I
think as you heard the Director yesterday, and I would echo,
anytime there is an attack, we in the FBI want to bat a
thousand, and we want to not ever have this planning again. We
are asking ourselves exactly the questions that you are asking:
Is there a place that we could have collected more? Is there
something that we could have done? That is exactly what we are
looking back at.
I think that the information we had, we worked quickly to
try to get that out in reporting and share it in multiple
ways--verbally, email, putting it in portals, et cetera. But
100 percent you can rest assured we are asking ourselves the
same as we want to continue to improve and get better.
Ms. Smislova. Ma'am, we also at DHS are completely
dissatisfied with the result of our efforts leading up to
January 6th. We are reexamining how we distribute our
information, how we coordinate with our partners. We thought
that it was sufficient, and clearly it was not.
We are also working much more focused on applying more
resources to better understanding this particular threat. We
also are looking at how we can better understand social media
to get those tips and maybe get better insight into what this
adversary is doing.
This is a very difficult threat for us and the intelligence
community to understand. It will require more partnerships with
nontraditional partners and with our standard State and local
partners. You will see that we will reinforce our already good
partnership with the FBI. We will do better.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. Following up on that last
comment around local partnerships, I wanted to go back to Ms.
Sanborn. On January 5th the FBI did receive information that
armed protests were being planned at capitol buildings in all
50 State capitals. Could you just briefly in the time we have
left share how that intel was acted upon and how it was shared
across the country?
Ms. Sanborn. Ma'am, I do not recall off the top of my head.
I would have to get back to you on the mechanism that we did to
share that information.
Senator Sinema. Based on that response, would it be fair to
assume that it was not a particularly high priority that there
were armed protests planned at all 50 State capitols across the
country?
Ms. Sanborn. No. It 100 percent was a high priority, and it
definitely--for our mission and our focus, we were not on the
6th only focused on the National Capital Region. We were
focused on the whole country, and so it 100 percent was a very
important focus for us. I just cannot remember the mechanism of
the document or whether it was an email, whether it was a joint
product, how we passed that information, but we were concerned
with it, and I know we disseminated it in some form, and I owe
you that.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. I will just have my team follow
up with you.
Mr. Chair, I see that my time has expired. I yield back and
thank you.
Chairman Peters. Thank you.
Senator Padilla, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First a comment, then a question for the witnesses. I
understand there are a lot of people saying they would like to
see a reconstruction of the events of January 6th and how they
came to be. For anybody genuinely interested, I would turn
their attention to the House impeachment managers' presentation
to the U.S. Senate from February 9th through the 13th.
My questions today, though, are in some ways a follow-up to
yesterday's Judiciary Committee hearing where we heard from FBI
Director Chris Wray, and I am going to quote from his testimony
yesterday: ``We are not aware of any widespread evidence of
voter fraud much less that would have affected the outcome in
the Presidential election.''
Yet former President Trump and other people with influence
continue to spread lies and disinformation about how the
November 2020 election was stolen. Former President Trump
continued this effort most recently at the Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Sunday, falsely claiming,
and I will quote from him, ``We did even better in the second
election than we did in the first. I won the first. We won the
second. We did much better.''
Prior to joining the U.S. Senate, I served for six years as
California's Secretary of State, which includes the
responsibility of serving as California's chief elections
officer for the most populous State in the Nation. I know Trump
is lying. We all know Trump is lying. FBI Director Wray told us
yesterday that one of the biggest challenges that government
faces in confronting domestic terrorism is separating the
signal from the noise. This was particularly true in the lead-
up to the January 6th insurrection.
When people of influence, particularly former and current
elected officials, continue to spread lies and disinformation
about election integrity, I would imagine that creates a lot
more noise, unnecessary noise, counterproductive noise,
dangerous noise, for you all to have to sift through.
I suspect it also serves to radicalize some number of
people to actually take action, including violent action, just
as we have seen for years with jihadist propaganda and other
forms of foreign terrorism.
My question for each of you--two questions, actually. One,
does the perpetuation of disinformation about the 2020 election
make your job harder? And how?
Second, what kind of message does the January 6th
insurrection send to other domestic violent extremists and our
foreign adversaries as well?
Ms. Sanborn. I will start. I think I would start with
pinpointing the specific thing that drives somebody to
mobilization is very difficult, and it is probably more complex
in the domestic violent extremist space than any other of the
terrorism threats we face. Why that is is what we have found in
our investigations is domestic violent extremists not only are
potentially doing what they are doing in an insular manner, but
it is a combination of an ideology that they have, and what
makes it different is a very unique personalized grievance.
When those things combine, that appears to be what pushed them
to mobilization. For every single individual we are trying to
find that, but it is incredibly hard, and it relies a lot on
their ability, post-disruption, to explain that process to
that. That is something we are trying very hard to get to the
bottom of on each of these cases.
Ms. Smislova. Sir, we did warn in our national terrorism
advisory system bulletin that we assess perceived grievances
that are fueled by false narratives could continue to mobilize
or incite people to commit violence. So to that extent, yes,
false narratives are difficult.
Mr. Salesses. Senator, the Department of Defense does not
do domestic intelligence on U.S. citizens, but there is no
tolerance for extremists in the ranks of the Defense
Department. Secretary Austin within the first few weeks of
taking over as the Secretary ordered a stand-down in the
Defense Department, a 1-day stand-down to examine extremism,
educate people, and make sure that we are doing everything we
can to root that out.
General Walker. Senator----
Senator Padilla. I will spare you for a second because I
want to make sure I get some clarity here. Now, I know these
issues are complex. Your work is tremendously complex and
challenging. But the answer to the first question, based on
what I hear--tell me if you disagree--the question being,
``Does this make your job harder?'' The answer would be so far
yes, yes, yes. Is that correct?
Ms. Sanborn. It is twofold. It is volume. Any more volume
makes it harder. The more variety of things that inspire people
definitely makes pinpointing it to a specific one challenges. A
variety of inspiration combined with amount of rhetoric out
there definitely are two things that add.
Senator Padilla. OK. In the limited time I have left, I
want to make sure we address the second question, which is,
what message do you believe this is sending to other domestic
violent extremists let alone foreign adversaries?
Ms. Smislova. We do assess that the breach on the Capitol
could inspire others to act, if that is what you are asking,
sir.
Ms. Sanborn. I agree. Anytime an adversary is successful,
others pay attention, and so we are worried that this would be
an inspiration.
Mr. Salesses. I agree with that.
General Walker. I agree as well, sir.
Senator Padilla. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator.
Just for planning purposes, before I recognize the next
member from my Committee, our witnesses, you have been here a
long time, so what our plan is is to give you in the near
future here a chance to stretch a little bit. I am going to
recognize one more Senator from my Committee. Chairwoman
Klobuchar will recognize one from her Committee. Then we will
give you a five-minute break.
With that, Senator Rosen, you are recognized for your
questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN
Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chairman Peters. I appreciate you
and all the other Senators on the Rules Committee for bringing
together this joint hearing. It is really important, and I
appreciate everyone for being here.
In October 2020, DHS warned that, and I quote, ``racially
and ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically white
supremacist extremists, will remain the most persistent and
lethal threat to the homeland,'' and that, quoting again,
``violent actors might target events related to the post-
election period.''
According to a former DHS Assistant Secretary for
Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention, the Office of
Intelligence and Analysis was aware of the potential for
violence on January 6th, and I quote again, ``but for reasons
of fear, did not want to formalize reports.'' We know Senator
Merkley asked you this question already. But, in fact, the day
before the attacks, I&A sent a national summary to law
enforcement partners stating that there was nothing significant
to report.
DHS assessed white supremacists to be the most lethal
threat to Americans, and if I&A was aware of domestic violent
extremists mobilizing to cause violence on January 6th, then
why didn't the Department issue a formal intelligence warning
that violence could occur? I ask this of Ms. Smislova.
Ms. Smislova. Yes, ma'am. First, we have heard of that
report that we supposedly sent out that said nothing
significant to report, and we cannot locate that. I have no
idea where that notion came from.
Senator Rosen. Could you follow up with us on that report
and see if you can find it or where we----
Ms. Smislova. We have looked, ma'am, for a while. We do not
have a copy of that report. That would not be an official
report I&A sent out. It is possible, ma'am, that where it came
from was maybe a phone call or something else where we said we
had nothing additional to report. We did view the work that we
had done prior to January 6th as being sufficiently specific
and warning of the possible threat. Some of the reports we did
distribute you just quoted from yourself, so it was our belief
that those warnings were enough. Obviously, they were not.
We are working very hard now to do two things: one, get
better specificity and insight into this particular threat; and
then, second, understand better how our customers receive our
products, read our products, who gets our products. It is
unclear to us why they were not received and we were not better
prepared for a possible attack.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. Did I&A share any intelligence
products with national fusion centers, relay information about
possible violence on January 6th? Is Capitol Police part of the
D.C. area fusion center?
Ms. Smislova. Yes, we talked specifically to the Capitol
Police in early December, made sure that they were in receipt
of all of our products, and they received, again, the one we
put out just a week before the attack that we co-authored with
FBI National Counterterrorism Center. We know that all of our
products do go to the National Network of Fusion Centers, and
we, in fact, participated in a phone call that was sponsored by
the National Network of Fusion Centers the day before, on
January 5th, where we also reiterated our concerns that we were
at a heightened threat environment, that this particular
adversary could mobilize quickly, and most likely small cells,
lone offenders, they would most likely come armed, and they
were interested in attacking specifically government buildings
and large gatherings.
Senator Rosen. I appreciate that, but it seems like we were
not exactly ready. So moving forward----
Ms. Smislova. Correct.
Senator Rosen [continuing]. I know you alluded that you are
going to try to figure out where your product goes and who
talks about it, but how are you going to specifically elevate
I&A's assessment that white supremacists are the homeland's
most lethal threat so that quality detail and informed
intelligence actually reaches our communities, including our
local law enforcement ahead of possible attacks so that we can
prevent any loss of life certainly or other kinds of damage?
Ms. Smislova. Yes, ma'am, and the Department is committed
to doing that. Our Secretary is very committed to coming up
with a whole-of-DHS approach to better combat domestic
terrorism. We are working across the Department to understand
how to better articulate the threat and deliver the threat and
how to mitigate it with our State and local partners.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. I want to move on because, the
day before the insurrection, the FBI issued an internal warning
that extremists planned to take part in violence on January
6th. Last week I asked Metro PD about the intelligence failures
leading up to the attack. Acting Chief of Police Contee told me
that FBI emailed MPD an alert bulletin warning about potential
violence at 7 p.m. the night before the attack. Mr. Contee told
me, again, I am going to quote here, ``I would certainly think
that something as violent as an insurrection at the Capitol
would warrant a phone call or something.'' But yesterday FBI
Director Wray shared that his information had been provided to
local law enforcement multiple times and in multiple forms.
Ms. Sanborn, it sounds like either Mr. Contee or Director
Wray was mistaken. Can you corroborate Director Wray's
Statement? If indeed the warning was only sent in writing, why
didn't the FBI go a little bit further? Why did it not alert
local law enforcement about the possible violent insurrection
in a manner more consistent with the gravity of the threat on
our homeland?
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, ma'am, I appreciate the question. I think
I will start with the information we received, just to
correctly characterize what it was, was information off the
Internet, unattributable to a specific person. That being said,
the content and the suggestion of what may or may not happen
was concerning enough that based on our prioritizing this as a
collection priority for our 56 field offices, they quickly
wrote that up and within the hour had that information to the
Washington Field Office. They wrote it up in a document
specifically for dissemination to State and local partners, but
really they tried to belt-and-suspender that together. They
wanted to make sure that we just did not rely on the
dissemination of a product that we also followed up with an
email so it went out in an email to all task force officers on
the Washington JTTF, and there are numerous of those from the
National Capital Region that received that email.
Still, on top of that, they did not want to rely on just
the email and the written document. In one of the command post
briefings that they were doing back then every couple of hours,
they specifically stood up and talked about this to try to have
a common operating picture of what this information was. Then,
still, to go a step further and not rely on just that and make
sure that we broadened the visibility not just to the National
Capital Region, but that we opened that aperture to the whole
country for our State and local partners, we posted that
Situational Information Report on what we call the ``LEEP
portal,'' which is available to all State and local partners.
Why that is significant is it gives them awareness, but it also
gives them the opportunity to maybe even potentially add
collection to our piece that we got from the social media
posting online.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. I know my time has expired, so I
will take this question offline.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK.
Senator Rosen. But there are still many online threatening
posts. We need to maybe change the definition of specific
threats----
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you.
Senator Rosen [continuing]. Raise them up. Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good thought, Senator Rosen.
Next, Senator Warner from the Rules Committee.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER
Senator Warner. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and let me also
agree with you and Senator Rosen that the cross-pollination
that takes place on social media platforms and on the dark Web
need to be pursued. I appreciate Ms. Sanborn's appropriate
response that you cannot arbitrarily collect off of American
citizens if there is not some nexus, but I do think it is
important--and I think others had mentioned this--that,
domestic violent extremists did not start with January 6th.
They did not start with Donald Trump. They are not going to end
with January 6th. They are not going to end with Donald Trump.
In my State, we saw a few years back the Unite the Right
rally at Charlottesville where many of these same groups and
affiliations came together in another violent effort where one
protester was killed, and, unfortunately, we lost a couple
members of our State police.
Director Wray has repeatedly said in testimony before the
Intelligence Committee, the worldwide threat assessment, that
domestic violent extremists are a major national security
threat to this country. I personally believe that that message
was downplayed during the previous administration because they
did not want to hear it.
I want to start with Ms. Smislova and Assistant Director
Sanborn. Director Sanborn, it is great to see you again.
Recognizing the constraints that are placed upon you in terms
of collections but also acknowledging that this threat has been
around for some time and the FBI in particular has acknowledged
that it is an extraordinary, major, severe threat, what have
you both been able to do in engaging in open-source
intelligence and independent research communities to better
identify these DVEs? I know in the run-up to the January 6th
insurrection there was research done by Harvard's Joan Donovan,
Elon University's Megan Squire, as well as other researchers,
that pointed to the fact that these DVEs and the affiliated
groups, oftentimes groups that are working in conjunction with
groups in Europe, were planning this effort. How are you, both
DHS and FBI, utilizing these independent researchers, open-
source activities, and making sure we have a better handle on
it, recognizing the appropriate constraints on what you can do
directly?
Ms. Smislova. Yes, Senator, thank you for the question. We
just last week met inside I&A to discuss contracting with some
of those experts outside. We are aware that we need to invest
more in our understanding of domestic terror. We understand as
well that it will require a different approach than a
traditional intelligence community approach. We must use
different sources to understand this threat. We are looking to
get outside experts, invest more in-house.
We are, second, looking at how to better understand the
social media world so that we can better focus on where we
might actually find specific and insightful information about
what the adversary is thinking about.
We are additionally working to partner more with our State
and local colleagues who we know have a different perspective
of this threat and have more information in some cases than we
do. We are also, again, partnering more across the Department
and with our Federal partners, increasing our relationships
with FBI.
Senator Warner. Ms. Sanborn.
Ms. Sanborn. Thank you, Senator. Nice to see you again as
well. I tried to say what we are trying to do, and I will put
it in three buckets really for you. Increasing our private
sector outreach is 100 percent. I have a section just inside my
division that does nothing but partner engagement. We have
found that the better we educate them on the threat we are
facing and painting a picture for them of what those threats
are, they are better able to pay attention and collect and
refer information to us, and that is helpful. I think that is
why when we talk about the fact that 50 percent of our tips and
leads to our cases or predication for our cases come from that
relationship and that education.
We are also, the same as my colleague said, using the State
and local partners, so we leverage the fusion centers a lot and
their ability and their expertise, and the Orange County Fusion
Center in California is a great example of leading sort of the
analytics of social media and leveraging their expertise to
predicate cases, and they were actually behind the predication
of the case, the base that we disrupted.
Last, I would say challenging ourselves for better
collection inside, trying to point our sources and our
collection to be in the right places to collect the
intelligence that we need. That is what led to the Norfolk SIR.
That is us pointing our collection in a space that gathered
that information.
Senator Warner. I have to tell you, respectfully, I am
pretty disappointed at both of your answers. This is not a new
threat. We have seen since the 2016 election how foreign
adversaries manipulate social media. We hear repeatedly from
DHS and FBI that we are going to get better at collecting. We
saw the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. We heard
people say we are going to get better at collecting information
and better partnering. Neither one of you referenced--there is
literally a host of experts in academia, organizations like
Graffica and others that are monitoring the DVEs and their
activities, oftentimes in their connections to antigovernment
groups in Europe, again, oftentimes amplified by nations like
Russia.
We are always going to get ready, and then we are somehow
surprised to see the kind of chaos that took place on January
6th. We cannot always be saying we are going to do better next
time when this threat has been around for years. It is not
going to disappear with Donald Trump. There has never been
somebody that was as active in encouraging these kind of
individuals, but we have to pick up our game. I do think the
academic researchers are a tool that we need to better develop.
I think we need to work on the intel side with some of our
foreign partners. Many of these groups have connections to
antigovernment extremists.
I will just close. I know my time has run out. This is not
directed at you, Director Sanborn, but I had a number of senior
conversations with FBI officials both January 5th and January
6th where I was constantly reassured, ``Do not worry. We think
from the FBI's standpoint we have this pretty well under
control.'' That was not the case, and we now have the Capitol
of the United States desecrated. For our adversaries, I would
say from an intel standpoint that the Vladimir Putins and the
Xi Jinpings of the world, the images of those marauders across
the whole world is going to be a price that we will be paying
for many years to come.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Warner,
and thank you for your work as Chair of the Intelligence
Committee.
We are now going to break for 5 to 10 minutes, so we will
be back at that moment. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Chairman Peters. The Committee will come back to order.
Senator Lankford, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for
this. Witnesses, thank you. I appreciate your engagement. We
are trying to all fill in blanks, and none of you have all the
answers on this. We are not expecting this panel to be able to
cover everything, but I do appreciate the gaps that you are
helping us fill as we go through this conversation together.
Ms. Smislova, I want to ask you a couple of questions about
the intelligence community (IC). I have read through some of
the sensitive information that was sent out to law enforcement
in advance of January 6th. Obviously, many of these folks that
are getting the report from Capitol Police and others, the
Sergeant at Arms, they get reports like this similar every day.
If I look at the reports prior to January 6th that are coming
out from intelligence, I have a hard time looking at it and
getting the context of how is this different than normal.
Help me understand for those reports, for someone who is
reading these reports every day, how would they understand the
context of what you are seeing or what the folks are seeing on
the ground that is different than what they had seen three
months before, six months before, a year before?
Ms. Smislova. Yes, sir. That is a great question, and that
is one that we are now reassessing. It was our view--again,
when I prepared for this hearing and I looked at all of the
work that we had done, specifically talking about the
extremists that would be motivated by the dissatisfaction with
the election results and also unhappy with some of the
restrictions related to COVID-19, the reports are quite good.
They are well written. They seem to summarize pretty
succinctly--I mean, I look at them and I am proud of the team,
which has produced twice as many reports on domestic terrorism
this last year as they did the year before. But to your point,
it might be hard to see that trend over time in the noise.
Looking backwards from now, what did not happen--right?--we
are examining should there be different types of reports.
Should we use some of the tools that DHS has such as the
National Terrorism Advisory System. We have restarted the
Counterterrorism Advisory Board, which was occurring monthly
under the previous administration and had fallen off for a
variety of reasons the last few years. We have restarted that.
Secretary Mayorkas is challenging us all to do a better job
when it comes to combating terrorism, domestic terrorism.
I guess that is a long way, sir, of saying we are taking a
look at the reports that we have done. We will be engaging very
directly with all of our stakeholders, asking them what we
could do better, asking them how they might better receive the
information. Should we put it in a different format? Is there
some way we should remind them that this is an alert? It is
hard, candidly, with the volume of information that we all
receive daily.
Senator Lankford. Sure. You are getting a tremendous amount
of that information that continues to be able to flow. But when
I look at the reports and look at even the bottom line up front
that is at the beginning of it, it all seems very standard to
me. There does not seem to be an elevated risk.
Now, there are some details that come afterwards that, if
you are reading through it, you could then elevate it. As you
heard some Members on this Committee and others in the media
have pulled out specific statements buried in a report and
pulled it out and said, ``How could you have missed this?''
Ms. Smislova. Right.
Senator Lankford. But in the bottom line up front, it looks
very standard. Here are the risks; here are the things that we
are seeing. There does not seem to be something that would say,
hey, this is higher than normal. If I can use the intel term,
it seems to be ``chatter.'' Even in the report itself, it
identifies multiple places. This was one person on a social
media sight, and they had one comment that they made. That
would make someone think this is one person out there saying
this. This does not look like a movement that is happening.
If that was accurate to say we are hearing some chatter on
that, there has to be some way to be able to note that for the
future, to be able to say elevate it more so than normal,
higher than it was a week ago, some way to be able to show a
trend line, whether it is bottom line up front, all the way
through to say it is increasing in awareness on this. That is
something that is fixable.
I would tell you my challenge from serving on the Intel
Committee is seeing different reports that come through that
are so carefully scripted, they say nothing. So getting as many
pieces of raw information as possible, which are in some of
these reports, but then to also make sure that the assessments
and the statements are very clear, will help everyone in the
process. We do reach moments where it becomes so politicized
that we have to be able to turn down the volume of that
particular word that at the end of it they do not say anything.
General, can I ask you a question on this as well? For any
of the operations that Washington, DC, has or that you know of
for other National Guard members, in any operation that you are
going to be around--and you had, obviously, soldiers that were
involved scattered around the city helping with traffic duties
and such during the day. Do you get the threat assessments in
advance the same as what Capitol Police and Metro Police would
get? Because obviously you are assisting Metro Police. Would
you get the same threat assessments that they get as they are
leading up to the event so that you would have that for that
event as well?
General Walker. Yes, Senator, we do receive finished
intelligence products.
Senator Lankford. OK. Are those helpful to you?
General Walker. They are.
Senator Lankford. Good. Is there anything that you are
missing when you go through those reports that you wish was
there?
General Walker. No, sir.
Senator Lankford. We would all love to see 20/20 into the
future. I get that completely.
You have made several comments through the course of the
day today that I have noted and in your statement itself where
you stated, ``The Secretary of the Army's January 5th letter
withheld authority for me to employ the Quick Reaction Force.''
Now, we have talked about that, and several of us have brought
it up. I want to ask a question. For the folks that were
actually on traffic duty and such that were helping out that
day and standing side by side with Metro Police to help them,
were those folks armed with less lethal implements to be able
to help in case there was a riot situation or an unruly crowd?
Could they have engaged from where they were with less than
lethal force?
General Walker. They were not equipped with less than
lethal, but they were equipped with force protection--helmets,
shin guards, body protection.
Senator Lankford. Were they wearing those or were those in
the vehicles?
General Walker. They were in the vehicles.
Senator Lankford. They were in the vehicle, and my
understanding is those were not military vehicles. They were
unmarked vehicles rather than government vehicles. Is that
accurate?
General Walker. Yes, sir, they were U.S. General Services
Administration (GSA) vehicles.
Senator Lankford. Got it. Then there was no overhead for
your folks that were out that day. My understanding is there
was a request from the Mayor to not have military vehicles, to
not have helicopters up in the air that day in support. Would
that have typically been something that you would have asked
for in the past to be able to have some kind of overhead for a
day like that?
General Walker. No, sir, we would not have needed
helicopters or any kind of air support for a mission like that,
just simple traffic control. The Quick Reaction Force was
available to support them if they needed it.
Senator Lankford. But they are physically how far away, as
far as minutes? You do not have to say where they were exactly.
General Walker. About 25 minutes away.
Senator Lankford. The Quick Reaction Force was 25 minutes
away. Even if it was a go, we need you to be able to respond,
it is 25 minutes on a good traffic situation to be able to get
there, barring what is happening with the crowd.
General Walker. We would have had a police escort. The
District of Columbia has military police and security forces.
Both have marked police vehicles with the emergency equipment,
lights, sirens.
Senator Lankford. Right. To clarify, that is 40 individuals
on that Quick Reaction Force. Is that correct?
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator Lankford. OK. Thank you. Thank you all.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
Next up, Senator King from the Rules Committee.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KING
Senator King. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thanks
for holding this hearing.
A quick question for Mr. Salesses. I know the Defense
Department has its own intelligence service, the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA), and this is a question for the
record. I would appreciate it if you would check and provide to
the Committee whatever there are in the way of intelligence
products that were available to the Department of Defense in
the week prior to and particularly the day prior to January
6th. They can be submitted in a classified setting if there are
issues of sources and methods. I do not know if there is any
such material, but if there is, I hope you will make it
available to the Committee.
General Walker, you are a very important witness today
because you were in the midst of all of this, and you were in
touch, and what we are really struggling with here is why that
long delay. You testified earlier that in the summer the delay
was a matter of minutes. This time it was a matter of three
hours and 19 minutes, I think as Senator Portman said.
The question is: Was the delay caused in your judgment,
from being on the various phone calls, by anything remotely
resembling politics and a desire not to interfere with this
particular group? Or was it because of--I think the word
``blowback'' has been used--the concerns about what had
happened in the summer and the criticism that the Guard had
taken for its actions at Lafayette Square or in other parts of
the protests of the summer? What do you think was going on here
in terms of why this matter took so long to respond to?
Mr. Salesses. Senator King, I think it was a combination of
both. In my judgment it was two factors. I had the benefit and
comfort of having the Secretary of the Army collocated with me
during the summer, so he was right next to me for pretty much
that entire week, the first week of June, and I was in constant
communication with him. I had his phone number, he had mine,
and we communicated regularly. I did not have that benefit for
January 6th, so there was some concern. I do not think it was
so much of what the District of Columbia National Guard and
Guard Nation did for June. I think it was more--the word that I
kept hearing was the ``optics'' of it. There was concern that
it could inflame the protesters. A uniformed presence of
Guardsmen, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force uniforms could inflame the
protesters. That was a concern as well. That was a thought by
Army senior leaders.
Senator King. The optics that you mentioned, that has sort
of in this context become a bit of a pejorative term. But what
they were really worried about, in my understanding, is the
visuals of armed troops and military vehicles and barriers
surrounding the United States Capitol. Ironically, that is what
we ended up with. But was that the concern that you discerned
in those conversations?
General Walker. Senator, nobody was talking about being
armed on January 6th. We were talking about physical presence,
civil disturbance, equipped Guardsmen to form a line with the
United States Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police to
restore order and prevent the Capitol from being breached.
Senator King. But there is no question that the day before
or the days before, the city made it clear that they did not
want the National Guard at the Capitol. Is that accurate?
General Walker. No, sir. The city does not have standing at
the Capitol. The Mayor's request and the Director of Homeland
Security Dr. Rodriguez's request did not talk about the Capitol
at all.
Senator King. OK. The request from the city was directed
toward the traffic control and those kinds of things, away from
the Capitol?
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator King. Let us move from history to what we learned
from this. In your view, should there be changes in the process
or changes in the chain of command in an emergency situation to
enable the National Guard, whether it is you here in the
District of Columbia or a National Guard unit in New York or
San Francisco or Austin, Texas, should this be something that
we are concerned about? The three hours of reaction in a true
emergency situation seems to be something we need to figure out
how to avoid.
General Walker. If I can answer it two ways, I think you
should be concerned that Chief Sund was not allowed to contact
me and ask for help in advance. Then we could have had the
right forces positioned to support the Capitol Police and
protect the Capitol. That is one.
No. 2, the request did take too long--the response to the
request took too long, so I think there needs to be a study
done to make sure that that never happens again. It should not
take three hours to either say yes or no to an urgent request
from either the Capitol Police, the Park Police, the
Metropolitan Police Department. In an event like that where
everybody saw it, it should not take three hours. But before
that would have happened, I think the Capitol Police should
have been empowered to request National Guard assistance in
enough time that we would have been there ready, to have a
large Quick Reaction Force sitting possibly at the Armory,
possibly closer, to be ready to respond and not be late to
any----
Senator King. The limitation on the Capitol Police ability
to liaise with you prior to the event was an issue, but I want
to get to the larger issue of being able to react, and should
we have contingency plans, should there be an after-action
assessment within the Department of Defense about those three
hours and how to empower the local leadership such as yourself
to react in an extraordinary emergency so that you do not have
to go through whatever it was that caused the delay, whether it
was communication or chain of command or consultation? But
clearly, again, this could be an emergency in another city
under entirely different circumstances. Don't you think it
would be prudent for us to have a contingency plan that would
be----
General Walker. Of course. Yes, sir.
Senator King [continuing]. More expeditious?
General Walker. So emergency authority, to act in an
emergency, to witness what occurred and to be able to respond,
yes, I think going forward the Department of Defense should
consider how the District of Columbia National Guard is able to
respond in a much more expeditious manner.
Senator King. Or the National Guard in other parts of the
country. Thank you very much, General, for your testimony.
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator King. Thanks to all of you, and thank you, Madam
Chair, again, for this important hearing.
Chairman Peters. Thank you. During today's testimony, two
memos have been discussed, one on January 4th and one on
January 5th from Ryan McCarthy to Major General William Walker.
One of those documents has already been entered into the
record. Without objection, I would like to enter the memo dated
the January 5, 2021 from Ryan McCarthy to General Walker.
Without objection, that will be entered.\1\
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\1\ The memo referenced by Senator Peters appear in the Appendix on
page 297.
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With that, Senator Carper, you are recognized for your
questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks. Can you hear me, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Peters. I can, loud and clear.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much. Thanks to our witnesses for
joining us today and for your input. I have been a Member of
this Committee, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, for
20 years, and one of my favorite memories of serving on this
Committee came at the end of a tragedy, and that was the attack
on 9/11, and the bipartisan commission we created, the co-
Chairs were Lee Hamilton, one of my mentors in the House of
Representatives, Congressman from Indiana, as I recall, who
chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), and a
fellow who was a Governor from our neighboring State of New
Jersey, Tom Kean, a Republican. The two of them provided great
leadership. The panel included former Secretary of the Navy
John Lehman. They worked together on the heels of 9/11 and
produced unanimously I think something like 41 recommendations
to the Congress and the President at the time, George W. Bush.
And we enacted I think about 36 of them, which is pretty
amazing when you think about how hard it is to get stuff done
around here today.
I have a question. I think we should create a 9/11 style
commission to look at the failures that led to the devastating
attack on our Capitol on January 6th just like we needed one 19
years ago.
A question, if I can, for Ms. Sanborn. Do you agree with
the need for a commission like the 9/11 Commission,
nonpartisan, led by just terrific citizens that would be--do
you agree with the need for a commission to analyze what went
wrong?
Ms. Sanborn. Sorry, you broke up a little bit, but I think
you are asking me if I agree that something similar to the----
Senator Carper. I can barely hear you.
Ms. Sanborn. I think you asked me--you were breaking up a
little bit and hard to hear--do I agree that something similar
to a 9/11 Commission is worth having in this instance, and I
think I would----
Senator Carper. That was my question, yes.
Ms. Sanborn. I think I would just say it this way: I have
been involved in numerous after-action lessons learned, and I
cannot think of a time where we have not learned and improved.
I think anytime we can reflect back and learn, it is value-
added.
Senator Carper. A follow-up question, if I could. How can
we ensure that a new 9/11 style commission examines the root
causes, not just the symptoms or problems--I am a big root
cause guy. But how can we make sure that if we were to
establish a 9/11 style commission it would examine the root
causes? That includes the threats posed by domestic terrorists.
Ms. Sanborn. If I understand your question, you are asking
me how do we ensure we have a 9/11 Commission that is set up to
do a good job, and I do not know that I----
Senator Carper. Something not just looking at the symptoms
of the problem but the root causes of the problem.
Ms. Sanborn. The root cause. I do not have any specific
examples of how best to set that up. I have never been
necessarily involved in picking sort of the road ahead and
picking and selecting the team that does the review, but I have
always benefited from the review.
Senator Carper. Maybe part of it is for Members of Congress
to make clear if there were to be a commission, our efforts
should certainly include focusing on the root causes of the
threat posed by domestic terrorism and make sure that the
leaders of that bipartisan commission are committed to examine
the root causes.
A second question, if I can, for Ms. Sanborn. This is a
question related to the intelligence failure. A large part of
our conversation from last week's hearing focused on raw
intelligence from the FBI that was shared I believe by email
just the evening before, on January 5th, with a lower-level
person at the Metropolitan Police Department, and it was not
shared with any senior official, even though we had seen in the
actual intelligence that something awful was going to happen
the next day that could lead to murder and mayhem.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Senator Carper, it is a little hard
to hear you. You might want to speak a little louder and
slower. Yes, it is not you.
Senator Carper. Usually it is me, but this time I think it
is not. But I guess my question is: What happened? Somebody
knew something awful could happen. Somebody knew. They sent an
email the evening before the event. Why wouldn't somebody pick
up the phone and call a senior official and say, ``We have this
information,'' and we were like 12 hours away, we need to do
something. Somebody sent an email. Ms. Sanborn, could you just
shed some light on how exactly we missed some of the grave
warning signs until like the very last minute?
Ms. Sanborn. Thank you for the question, sir. I think I
will start with the piece of information we received, again,
was a nonattributable posting to a message board, and so very
raw, very unvetted. We actually did not receive that
information until very late in the afternoon on the 5th and
almost into the evening. Because of our emphasis on we need any
intelligence, even though it was raw, unattributed, and
unvetted, the Norfolk office quickly wrote that up specifically
in a document following our processes to disseminate that. A
Situational Information Report is for the intentional purpose
of sharing that with State and local partners. Not only did
they write that up, because they knew how important it was to
get that information out into hands of folks that might need
it, our State and local partners, within 40 minutes they sent
an email to the Washington Field Office with that information,
and Washington Field Office also then followed up with an email
to all task force officers. Several different mechanisms
happened here, and, we like to use the phrase ``belt and
suspenders.'' We did not want to make sure that one method of
communication failed, so we wrote it up in the document for
dissemination. We sent it in an email to all task force
officers in the National Capital Region, and that does include
Washington Metro as well as Capitol. But, again, not wanting to
rely on those two mechanisms only, it was then briefed verbally
in a command post, an interagency command post that we were
doing briefings every couple of hours so that every agency in
that command post had what we call a ``common operating
picture,'' knowing what all of us knew at any given time. It
was briefed at 8 p.m. on the evening of the 5th.
Then taking it one step further, because we did not want to
limit our aperture to just the National Capital Region, because
there is collection opportunity for all State and local
partners and Federal partners to help us, we loaded that
suspicious information report into what we call the ``LEEP
portal,'' and that is accessible by all State and local
partners.
We really tried in various ways to make sure that we did
not rely on one communication mechanism and really tried to
rely on several so that the information would get to the right
people.
Senator Carper. I will close with this. I do not know if
anybody picked up the phone and called somebody in charge and
said, ``We have a problem here, and we are 12 hours away from
seeing that problem up front and in person. We need to do
something.'' All well and good about sending out emails and
copying people and that sort of thing, but somebody should have
just picked up the phone and said, ``We need to do something.
This is urgent.'' I am not sure that that happened.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF
Next, Senator Ossoff.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the
panel. General, thank you for your service.
In response to Senator King a moment ago, he noted your
testimony from earlier today that you had seen the requisite
authorities granted for the D.C. Guard in a matter of minutes
in the past. In this case, it took over three hours. You stated
you believed it was a combination of political concerns and
optical concerns that led to that delay. Can you please break
down which concerns you believe were political, which you
believe were optical? What is the basis for your assessment
that the three-hour delay was a function of political and
optical concerns?
General Walker. I do not think it was so much political. It
was let me focus on the optics, because that is what I heard,
the word ``optics,'' and the word that having uniformed
presence at the Capitol could inflame the protesters.
Senator Ossoff. Who made that statement?
General Walker. That was senior leaders in the United
States Army, General Piatt, General Flynn, and others. They got
back to me saying--and that was on the phone call with District
of Columbia senior leaders that it would not be their best
military advice to send uniformed Guardsmen to the Capitol
because they did not like the optics. They had also said that
they thought it could inflame--what they wanted to do was send
Guardsmen to relieve police officers in the city so more
policemen could get to the Capitol.
Senator Ossoff. That was the call at 2:30 p.m. following
the Chief's call to you. Is that correct, General?
General Walker. Yes, sir.
Senator Ossoff. You conveyed to those on that call, who
included the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Secretary
of the Army, the Acting Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, the fact that the U.S. Capitol Police
Chief's tone had been, as you describe in your testimony,
``frantic,'' that he had informed you at 1:49 p.m. that the
security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile
rioters, that the Joint Session of Congress had been
interrupted, that the Vice President was still on the premises?
General Walker. No, I never said all that. What I relayed--
and it was not to the Chairman. What I relayed to the Army
leadership was the call that Chief Sund had with me at 1349, at
1:49 p.m., and that it was an urgent plea, and his voice was
cracking, and he was serious. He needed help right then and
there, every available Guardsman.
At the 2:32 p.m. call, that is when the Deputy Mayor was on
the call, the Director of Homeland Security, Acting Chief
Contee, Chief Sund, and others to include the Chief of the
United States Secret Service Uniformed Division was on that
call as well. We dialed in trying to get the Secretary of the
Army on the call, but he was not available, the G3 or the
Director of Plans, Operations, and Training (DPOT) for the
Army, General Flynn, joined the call, and the Director of the
Army Staff, General Piatt, joined the call, and there were
others on the call as well. During that call Chief Sund pleaded
to have National Guard support at the Capitol immediately. That
was reinforced by Chief Contee: ``We need them there right now.
The Capitol will be breached.''
Senator Ossoff. Thank you for the clarification, General. I
appreciate that.
Mr. Salesses, between 2:30 p.m. and 4:32 p.m., what were
the internal deliberations of the Department of Defense to
determine whether or not to grant the request?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, there was discussion. Secretary
McCarthy, who was the Secretary of the Army at the time, asked
what was the National Guard going to do on the Capitol.
Secretary McCarthy wanted to understand exactly how the
National Guard was going to be employed coming to the Capitol.
Because they had heard that gunshots had been fired, there was
explosives, obviously a pretty dynamic environment. What he was
trying to understand was what was the National Guard going to
do when they came up here? Were they going to be asked to go
into the building and clear the building? Were they going to be
part of the outside perimeter? He was trying to understand
that. He went as far as going to the Metro Police Department at
4:10 p.m. to sit down with them and make a clear understanding
of how they were going to be employed.
After that meeting at 4:10 p.m., he went back to the Acting
Secretary of Defense, and at 4:32 p.m. he approved the
deployment of the National Guard.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. He was aware, was he not, while
he was conducting this analysis, that the nature of the Chief's
request as relayed through the general had been frantic, that
the perimeter of the Capitol had already been breached, that
Members of Congress' lives were at risk, that the Vice
President's life was at risk?
Mr. Salesses. I would assume he knew that, Senator.
Senator Ossoff. He was of that during that time. Thank you
so much.
I do have to reflect for a moment that ultimately
responsibility for securing this conflict falls to the U.S.
Congress, which is responsible for these premises. I was
dispirited speaking with the former Chief in our last hearing
when he described that there was no individual responsible for
the security of the United States Capitol, that an urgent
request for support from the Guard required concurrence with
the two Sergeant at Arms, an unwieldy command structure, and
then there was an unwieldy command structure imposed within the
Executive Branch as well.
General, based upon your military experience, is there any
reason why the United States Capitol Police could not generate
the capabilities to independently provide the kind of Quick
Reaction Force that the troops under your command would have so
that this institution, the U.S. Congress, is not dependent upon
swift decisionmaking by the Secretary of the Army or
concurrence between civilian and military leadership when the
lives of Members of Congress and the Vice President are at
risk?
General Walker. Yes, Senator, the United States Capitol
Police could develop that capability. I mean, they certainly
could.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, General, and a final question
for you. Had you conducted any exercises that included
simulations of civilian-military joint decisionmaking,
simulations of command decisions involving contingencies that
threatened the functioning of the U.S. Congress, the lives of
Members of Congress, Joint Sessions of Congress, outside of the
context of specific preparations for specific National Special
Security Events?
General Walker. No, sir.
Senator Ossoff. Might exercises such as those have improved
the capacity of the overall command to respond to an event like
this.
General Walker. We were prepared to come to the Capitol and
help the United States Capitol Police secure the Capitol. Here
is what we do. We practice and rehearse civil disturbance. I
think we are well exercised in that capability. It is a mandate
that all National Guard practices civil disturbance. We are
equipped for it, we train for it, and we are prepared to do it
when called upon. If we had been approved to do it, we would
have there and helped the United States Capitol Police.
Senator Ossoff. Understood, General, and I have no doubt
that the forces under your command were appropriately trained
and qualified.
General Walker. And equipped.
Senator Ossoff. Equipped. My question is whether any
exercises had been undertaken that simulated the command
decisions that would need to be made, the requests that you
would need to make, for example, at the Secretary level in
order to allow your troops, which were properly trained and
equipped and had those capabilities----
General Walker. Senator, they are already there. That is a
process that is well rehearsed, well practiced. We do it most
of all with the Metropolitan Police Department. They are our
primary customer. But if you recall when the monuments were
attacked in the summer, the Department of Interior, on behalf
of the United States Park Police, exercised that same request.
The Secretary of Defense authorized the District of Columbia
National Guard to respond to monuments in the city and help the
Park Police protect those monuments.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, General.
General Walker. It was the same process.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Paul, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL
Senator Paul. I think there is a danger in analyzing this
of spending too much time on January 6th and not enough time on
the days and weeks and months leading up to this. I think on
that day it would probably be superhuman to have gotten the
National Guard there in 20 minutes or 30 minutes. You might
have, but really I think the Capitol would have been breached,
and we would have been coming in after the fact, no matter how
good you were.
I think really there is a judgment question about whether
or not we should have had more people there. In retrospect, we
all agree there should have been more people there. But,
really, this is the judgment that should call into question
predating that. Should we have had more Capitol Hill Police
there? My understanding is there were over a thousand Capitol
Police that were either off duty or not here, that could have
and probably in retrospect better judgment would have had them
in there, and we would have had riot lines, and we might have
prevented this from happening.
I think we can talk all we want about January 6th but,
really, it is the decisionmaking leading up to that. Someone
made a bad judgment call, and we need to be better prepared. If
we are going to fix this in the future, it is not about calling
the National Guard out quicker. It is about having a thousand
people standing there before the riot happens so the riot does
not happen. That is where the real mistake is, and I think we
can get too bogged down on the details of January 6th and
forget about what could have actually fixed this.
Ms. Sanborn, in the investigation afterwards, did the FBI
or any intelligence-gathering entity of Government subpoena
requests or issue a warrant for non-individualized phone and
credit card records for anyone on Capitol Hill on January 6th?
Ms. Sanborn. I do not have the specific answer to a
specific subpoena, but I do know that we have issued lots of
subpoenas and lots of search warrants as a result of each of
those----
Senator Paul. My question is not toward individuals. Like
if you see John Smith on a video, I am fine with looking at his
records. My question is: Did you have a generalized collection
of data about people who were on the Hill on January 6th?
Ms. Sanborn. Not that I am aware of. I do know that we have
used data--and this is reflected in some of the charging
documents--that had geolocation data. I do not know the
background for what the underlying predicate was for that
search warrant, but I do know that we obtained geolocation
data. I just do not have the predication----
Senator Paul. Do you understand the potential problem here
if you gather everybody's data----
Ms. Sanborn. I do.
Senator Paul [continuing]. Then start searching through it
and looking for people who might have done something wrong as
opposed to the traditional law enforcement where we think John
Smith is on a video breaking into the Capitol, now we want to
look at his records and see if he was there to help prove he
was there. I think that is a reasonable request. But we have
had articles written about the Bank of America sharing all of
people's credit card information. What I need to know is: Did
you request it? Did you subpoena it? Did the Bank of America
just decide they do not care about the privacy of their
customers and just upload everybody's data? These are important
questions.
The Fourth Amendment is out there to protect against
generalized searches, and I think you know the importance. Most
people in law enforcement know the importance of you
individualize. We are all fine with that. But there are even
reports that elected Members of Congress' phone calls, records,
as well as credit card records are in some of this data. Have
you heard of that or seen any of that?
Ms. Sanborn. I do not have any specifics on that, sir. I
would be happy to follow up.
Senator Paul. All right. If we want to get the answer, we
just need to direct it to the Director of the FBI?
Ms. Sanborn. I mean, you can direct it--I am happy to
follow up and answer the question for you.
Senator Paul. All right, but you have not personally seen
any of that or seen any cross-referencing of records between a
general category to try to find individuals as opposed to have
an individual and then looking at data?
Ms. Sanborn. No, again, sir, I do not know what went into
the background for the application for the search warrant, so I
would like to follow up and get you that detail. I do know that
we did receive information from private partners. I would also
like to follow up on that specific detail about Bank of America
for you as well.
Senator Paul. But you do not know the answer?
Ms. Sanborn. I do not.
[The information referred to follows:]
Senator Paul. OK. I think it is very important. Everybody
wants to get to the bottom of this, but it also very important
that we not have some huge dragnet that everybody that went
shopping on January 6th in D.C. is now a suspect and going to
be charged with some kind of conspiracy that could be 20 years
in prison. As we do the investigation, it is important that
those who committed violence are treated accordingly and given
significant penalties. But I think it is also important that
those of us who have been for criminal justice reform, for
poor, underrepresented people in our cities, also want the same
kind of justice here that we are not charging people with
crimes that are 20 years for doing something that was
admittedly wrong and they should be punished for. But there is
a difference between assaulting a policeman and causing bodily
harm, which I think requires jail time, and, being present at
the Capitol. I worry that if we are going to look at
everybody's phone shopping records and 20,000 people were here,
I hope that is not what is going on, is that we are looking for
anybody in D.C. and we are going to just develop a case out of
nothing without having seen them actually commit some sort of
crime.
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, sir, I totally understand. I would like
to follow up on both of those. Again, I am not clear on what
went into the application for the phone data. I do know we have
phone data. I am aware of the Bank of America situation and
would like to follow up in detail with you on that.
Senator Paul. My suspicion is it was gotten in a
generalized way because we have very little concern for
individual privacy anymore, and the warrant requirements and
some of the court precedents allow the FBI to gather this,
which is something I object to, but gathering things in a large
way, not specific to an individual, not specific to probable
cause, and not specific to someone alleged to have found a
crime, but more a dragnet of, hey, let us just look at all the
phone data on Capitol Hill. I want you to know that there are
at least some of us in this country who do not like that.
Chairman Peters. Senator Hawley, you are recognized for
your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Madam Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
General Walker, let me start with you, if I could. You have
testified to several Senators today that you faced restrictions
for the deployment of the Quick Reaction Force that you had
assembled, and those are restrictions that you had not had to
deal with before. Is that broadly correct?
General Walker. That is correct.
Senator Hawley. What is your understanding for why those
restrictions were put in place?
General Walker. Senator, it was never really explained to
me. I am a major general. I do not question the people above
me. The Secretary of the Army is the Secretary of the Army; the
Secretary of Defense is the Secretary of Defense. I had
restrictions that were unusual to me. I had not had them in the
past.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Salesses, let me ask you about your
response to this. You said something earlier to Senator Portman
that caught my attention. You said to him, when he was asking
about this same issue, you said, and I am quoting you now,
``several things happened in the spring'' that may have led to
these changes. What are you referring to there?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, what I am referring to is there were
a number of incidents in the spring where we helicopters flying
above U.S. citizens; we had spy planes, RC-26, flying over
folks who were protesting. We also had law enforcement officers
that were in military uniforms, which sometimes confused
people. When the new Secretary came in, he wanted to make sure
that he had guidance on making decisions.
Now, I will point out, Senator, that the Secretary of
Defense is the only authority to order military personnel into
civil disturbance operations. That is the Secretary of Defense.
This is more clarifying information because it talks about not
just civil disturbance; it talks about using helicopters, using
planes, using types of equipment. That is why the memo was
published, was for that reason, because of the events in the
spring. The Secretary of Defense wanted to have that authority
vested in him. It was a very clear chain of command. It went
from the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of the Army to
General Walker.
Senator Hawley. Thank you for that answer. If I understand
you correctly, the events of the spring, which we are all
familiar with--I mean, we had the attack on the White House
where 60 Secret Service officers were injured. The President
had to be evacuated into a bunker. The church across the street
was lit on fire. We had the incidents in Portland, Oregon,
where 277 Federal officers were injured at the Federal
courthouse there. We had rioting in various other cities across
the country, including Washington. This, of course, was
politically controversial, the use of the National Guard in
some of those incidents, the use of the National Guard here in
Washington, DC.
The Washington Post even reported on this. For instance,
June 4, 2020, ``Humvees, helicopters, and the National Guard:
D.C. officials push back on show of Federal force on city
streets.''
Then from January 4th--this is still the Post: ``National
Guard activated for D.C. protest with more restraints than in
June.''
Is the picture here, Mr. Salesses, if I have this right,
that we had these--we had riots. We had civil unrest in the
summer. The National Guard was involved in some of these to
some extent. That was politically controversial, as journalists
at the time documented, I am sure people watching this are very
familiar with. That then led in some way to this reaction,
well, we are going to be careful, we are going to be more
careful, we are going to put some restraints on how we deploy
the Guard that we previously have not before. Have I got that
correct?
General Walker. You do, Senator. That is exactly what
happened, Senator.
Senator Hawley. OK.
General Walker. Just to call into mind that we had a new
Secretary, too. Secretary Esper had left. Secretary Miller came
in. He was aware of the events, and he wanted to make the
decisions at his level.
Senator Hawley. Right. Got it. I think that is helpful. I
think that is very helpful clarifying testimony. I think that
is something that this Committee--or Committees and Congress is
going to have to grapple with as we go forward, that there was
a political reaction to events from over the summer, and that
political reaction resulted in restraints being put on Guard
deployment that ultimately ended up being dangerous on the day
here, on January the 6th.
Ms. Sanborn, can I come to you for a second and just follow
up on something that Senator Paul was asking about? I had the
chance to talk with Director Wray yesterday in the Judiciary
Committee in a wide-ranging hearing there, and one of the
things I asked him about were these reports about private
companies who have conducted broad searches of their customer
databases and according to reports, turned over this
information voluntarily. He said he did not know one way or the
other. I heard you give a similar response to Senator Paul. You
said you would follow up with him. Can I ask you to do the same
with me with specifics about that?
Ms. Sanborn. Absolutely.
Senator Hawley. Thank you. Let me just ask you a little
more broadly, to your knowledge, has the FBI requested or
required private companies to turn over metadata in order to
identify individuals who may have been present in the Capital
Region or engaged in violence on the 6th?
Ms. Sanborn. Anything we would have requested from any of
those companies would have been via subpoena or search warrant,
so via lawful process. I would have to get you the background
of when we may have asked for that or not. I am not positive of
the situation, but I just would reiterate that if we obtain
that, it would be from a lawful court order or a subpoena.
Senator Hawley. Director Wray gave me a similar answer
yesterday, but he similarly said he did not know of the
specifics. That was his language, he did not actually know if
there had been any such requests or not. I think he also went
on to say he would not be surprised, but he just did not know.
You are telling me you do not have any additional knowledge of
the specifics?
Ms. Sanborn. I am definitely not aware of a situation where
we requested it. Whether or not somebody offered it, both of
those are things I would like to follow up. Any request would
have come with legal process. Whether it was offered to us
voluntarily, that is where I would like to follow up. I know
you specifically mentioned Bank of America to him yesterday. I
am aware of that situation and would like to follow up with you
on it.
Senator Hawley. OK, great. But you are not aware of any
request made by the Bureau?
Ms. Sanborn. Not outside legal process.
Senator Hawley. OK. Got it. Are you aware if any of these
methods that have been reported using metadata, cell phone
location data, financial data, were any of these used by the
FBI during Operation Legend or any other investigations over
the summer related to civil violence then?
Ms. Sanborn. I am not aware, sir. That would be my
counterpart, but happy to follow up and have him follow up with
you.
Senator Hawley. That would be great. I would appreciate
that. Thank you all for being here and for your service.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Senator Cruz from the Rules
Committee.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CRUZ
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to each of
the witnesses for being here. Thank you for your service
helping keep this country safe.
As we look back on the terror attack that played out in the
Capitol on January 6th, it is apparent that far more should
have been done to keep the Capitol safe and to stop the attack
beforehand. There were multiple factors that led to that not
being done and to there not being a sufficient law enforcement
presence to prevent violent criminals from carrying out that
terror attack.
On January 5th, the day before the attack, D.C. Mayor
Muriel Bowser sent out a tweet. That tweet read, ``To be clear,
the District of Columbia is not requesting other Federal law
enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment
without immediate notification to and consultation with MPD if
such plans are underway.''
The tweet that she sent attached a letter that she sent to
the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense. That
letter in turn reads as follows: ``As the law enforcement
agency charged with protecting residents and visitors
throughout the District of Columbia, the Metropolitan Police
Department is prepared for this week's First Amendment
activities. MPD has coordinated with its Federal partners,
namely, the U.S. Park Police, U.S. Capitol Police, and U.S.
Secret Service, all of whom regularly have uniformed personnel
protecting Federal assets in the District of Columbia.''
``This week MPD has additional logistical support of
unarmed members of the D.C. National Guard who will work at the
direction of and in coordination with MPD. The District of
Columbia Government has not requested personnel from any other
Federal law enforcement agencies. To avoid confusion, we ask
that any request for additional assistance be coordinating
using the same process and procedures. We are mindful that in
2020 MPD was expected to perform the demanding tasks of
policing large crowds while working around unidentifiable
personnel deployed in the District of Columbia without proper
coordination. Unidentifiable personnel, in many cases armed,
cause confusion among residents and visitors and could become a
national security threat in no way for MPD and Federal law
enforcement to decipher armed groups.''
``To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting
other Federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any
additional deployment without immediate notification to and
consultation with MPD if such plans are underway. The
protections of persons and property is our utmost concern and
responsibility. MPD is well trained and prepared to lead the
law enforcement coordination and response to allow for the
peaceful demonstration of First Amendment rights in the
District of Columbia.''
Signed, ``Muriel Bowser, Mayor.''
So in hindsight, that letter seems incredibly ill advised.
Now, hindsight is always 20/20. But to what extent did the
District of Columbia's explicitly asking for no additional
Federal personnel impact the decisionmaking of your respective
agencies?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, I will go first. In my oral
statement this morning, I mentioned that letter because it
did--it was a communication that they were looking for no more
support. On top of that, Senator, we also contacted all the
Federal law enforcement organizations--Secret Service, Park
Police, Marshals, FBI, and Capitol Police--over the weekend of
the 2nd and 3rd of January, just to make sure that the
Department of Defense, if additional support was going to be
needed, that we would obviously provide that support. We did
that over the weekend. Then we receive that letter on the 5th,
and based on that it was clear that there was no additional
support needed for our law enforcement partners or the city--
the District, rather.
Senator Cruz. Let me follow up on that, Mr. Salesses. Mr.
Sund, who testified before the Senate last week, said that he
had requested the support of the D.C. National Guard on January
6th, but that the Army Secretary denied his request saying, ``I
do not like the visual of the National Guard standing aligned
with the Capitol in the background.'' Is that accurate?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, I am not aware of the Secretary of
the Army talking to Chief Sund about the D.C. National Guard
and the Capitol. It has been reported by others that there were
other folks that made that contention to the D.C.--I mean the
Capitol Police, but I am not aware of the Secretary of the Army
doing that. In fact, nobody in the chain of command disapproved
the request on the 6th of January from the Capitol Police.
Nobody disapproved it.
Senator Cruz. The various authorizing memoranda from
January 4th and January 5th suggest that the National Guard was
significantly restricted on the 6th. While Ryan McCarthy, the
former Secretary of the Army, approved the D.C. National Guard
to support MPD in some ways, he expressly withheld authority to
employ the Quick Reaction Force, and he lacked authority to
authorize the issuance of weapons and riot gear, among other
things.
Could you please explain what you understand to be the
restrictions placed on the Guard?
Mr. Salesses. Senator, again, there is a very strict chain
of command for the D.C. National Guard. It runs from the
Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of the Army to the D.C.
Guard Commanding General, General Walker. Anytime the military
is going to deploy the civil disturbance operations, it
requires the Secretary of Defense's approval. The memos that
were published on the 4th of January and respectively on the
5th of January, those were to provide additional guidance to,
number one, the memo on the 4th from the Secretary of Defense
to the Secretary of the Army. He wanted to make decisions if
the National Guard was going to be employed in any kind of
operation that required helicopters, bayonets, the things that
are on the letter.
Subsequently, the Secretary of the Army published the memo
on the 5th stating that this is how he expected the D.C.
National Guard to be employed at the traffic stops, the Metro
stations, and if the QRF that was positioned at Andrews Air
Force Base was going to be used, he wanted to understand
exactly how that was going to be used through a concept of
operations. That is what those documents----
Senator Cruz. General Walker, could you answer the same
question and, in particular, whether you had the authority to
employ a Quick Reaction Force prior to January 6th? Would that
have potentially made a difference on January 6th if you had
been able to do so?
General Walker. Senator Cruz, I would have had that
authority prior to January 6th to employ, direct a Quick
Reaction Force. The Secretary of Defense, his letter authorizes
me to use the Quick Reaction Force and it says ``only as a last
resort,'' where the Secretary of the Army, his direction to me
withholds the authority to use the Quick Reaction Force, and he
will only authorize that and only after he has a concept of
operations sent to him, a CONOP sent to him. That was a
restriction that was unusual to me. I had never seen that
before.
Senator Cruz. Madam Chair, I would ask unanimous consent
that both the tweet and the letter from D.C. Mayor Muriel
Bowser be entered into the record.\1\
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\1\ The information referenced by Senator Cruz appears in the
Appendix on page 306.
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Chairwoman Klobuchar. Without objection, it will be entered
in the record.
Senator Cruz. Thank you.
Chairman Peters. I think we are starting to wrap up this
hearing, and I want to thank the witnesses again for your
testimony. But I have a couple quick questions, and I know
Chairwoman Klobuchar has a couple, and then we will have some
closing comments.
I guess I will start with these two questions and the
preface. I am going to start these questions where I started my
questions initially with the events that happened in the summer
of 2020 where authorization happened very quickly for the
National Guard. There was no delay. You were immediately
deployed, General Walker, and yet it happened differently on
January 6th. Part of that is some of the surveillance.
My first question for you, Ms. Sanborn, it has been
reported that the FBI deployed its state-of-the-art
surveillance plane to watch the protests that occurred in
Washington, DC, over the summer in response to the death of
George Floyd. How do you explain the difference in how the FBI
responded to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest compared to
the pro-Trump protest?
Ms. Sanborn. I do not have any specifics on the plane. It
is just not my purview of something that I cover specifically
as the Assistant Director of Counterterrorism. But what I can
tell you from the Counterterrorism Division's approach to both
of those was not different. We go after the violence, and what
we saw all summer long was violence and people using the guise
of First Amendment-protected activity to conduct violence. We
opened hundreds of cases and arrested close to 100 people
throughout the summer in their activities.
Our approach to both instances was equal opportunity. If
you are going to do violence in the United States and break
Federal law, the FBI is going to investigate.
Chairman Peters. Certainly, and I understand that, and you
should. There is no quarrel there. Where would we get the
answer on the use of a surveillance plane versus not on January
6th but on other occasions across the country?
Ms. Sanborn. Yes, I will take the question back, and I
think it would be best posed for our Critical Incident Response
Group (CIRG). But definitely I will find somebody that can
follow up with you.
Chairman Peters. I appreciate that.
General Walker, you were also asked by someone on the panel
about the helicopter in relation to January 6th, and you said
that is not normally something we would use. I do not want to
mischaracterize you--you said it would not be necessary. But
what I did get from it is that it is not normally used, but yet
it was used in the summer protests. Why was it used there and
not on January 6th? Was there different circumstances? How do
we explain that difference?
General Walker. It is my understanding one of my Deputy
Commanding Generals put the helicopter up. Ultimately it is
still me, but I believe the request was to be able to observe
and report the crowd size. It was at night, that night, versus
a daytime operation. That is why the helicopter was there.
I just want to correct the record regarding the RC-26 that
was mentioned. The District of Columbia National Guard never
requested an RC-26 fly over the District of Columbia.
The difference between the summer and January 6th was the
Secretary of the Army was right next to me, for days at a time.
When it came time to respond to the White House, the Secretary
of the Army was with me. The monuments, the Secretary of the
Army was with me. He either came to my headquarters, he rode in
the car with me, or I rode in the car with him. I was present
when he called the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney
General to request approval for requests that the city made.
The city wanted us to conduct additional traffic control
points, blocking vehicles. The Secretary gave me a verbal and
then contacted the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney
General, and it was done.
Those are just some of the differences that occurred, and I
did not have the Secretary of the Army with me on January 6th.
Chairman Peters. The Secretary was with you during the
summer. Those were large gatherings. All the evidence pointed
that this was going to be a very large gathering, and we know
that based on social media the Capitol and Members of Congress
was going to be a target.
Is there a reason that you know of that the Secretary of
the Army was unable to be with you on that day?
General Walker. I do not, but the Secretary of the Army is
the Secretary of the entire Army, so I do not know what else
was going on throughout the Army. We are globally deployed. I
do not know why he was not with me on January 6th as he was
during the summer.
Chairman Peters. Very good.
Ms. Sanborn, finally, I will wrap up here. Could you please
commit that in the future the FBI will provide any threat
reporting, even if it is not yet corroborated or fully
analyzed, relating to the security of the Capitol to the U.S.
Capitol Police, both Sergeant of Arms, and congressional and
committee leadership?
Ms. Sanborn. I believe I can do that, sir, yes.
Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you all, and I know
it has been a long day and you probably want some lunch, and I
really appreciate your patience today.
I wanted to end with some ideas and constructive ideas,
which is why we are doing this hearing on how we can best do
that. Any of you can take this, but this is just based on all
of the experience you have had.
We have a unique situation here at the Capitol where the
Chief is reporting to this Police Review Board. You, General
Walker, may be most familiar with it. But they are reporting to
the Sergeant at Arms, the two Sergeants at Arms, and the
Architect of the Capitol. It is three of them. In fact, just
today Senator Schumer announced a new Sergeant at Arms, Karen
Gibson, while you guys were sitting there. There is something
about the structure which may work for requesting resources or
making decisions, but certainly did not work in this context
where the Chief, then-Chief Sund, was leading up to it, asking
them, probably not able to do exactly what he may have wanted
to do at the time, and then the most ridiculous of situations
during the insurrection is actually calling them for their
advice and authority while they are individually guarding the
Members and safely getting them to other places in this crisis
situation. Your views on whether or not that is an ideal
situation--this is called a ``softball,'' General Walker. That
is, whether or not this is an ideal situation, and maybe Ms.
Sanborn, for trying to make decisions in a crisis as we look at
changes that we can suggest and make here at the Capitol.
General Walker. The Sergeant of Arms, both of them, were
briefed by me personally in 2018 on what it takes to request
District of Columbia National Guard support. I sat down with
both Sergeant of Arms, myself and Brigadier General Dean and
others, in their office and explained six-step process and left
them with a PowerPoint presentation.
I also briefed Chief Sund and his predecessor. I had them
come to the Armory and explain in detail what it takes if you
ever need District of Columbia National Guard support.
What I think might be helpful in the future is that that is
practiced, that you come up with an event when we need District
of Columbia National Guard support. You pick a day and say--and
then we exercise it, and then have the District of Columbia
National Guard actually come out in an exercise, here is where
we would go, here is how we would support the United States
Capitol Police. But both Sergeants of Arms understood what it
takes to request District of Columbia National Guard support.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Mr. Salesses, do you want to add
anything to that?
Mr. Salesses. Thank you, Senator. Yes, I do. I work on a
regular basis with the Capitol Police Board. I just met with
the new team on Monday, in fact. The challenge, quite candidly,
is in contingency operations and contingency events, there
really needs to be one person in charge making decisions. To
have four people that have to either agree or come together and
have the same--I just do not think it is a very workable
solution.
I also deal with all the Capitol Police requests that come
to the Defense Department. Normally we get the requests
actually at the last minute most of the time, because it takes
all four of them to sign a document to give us the request.
For example, right now we have the National Guard on the
Capitol today. It is supposed to end on the 12th. We are trying
to figure out would the Capitol Police Board--what is going to
happen after the 12th? We need an answer in the Defense
Department so that we understand----
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Exactly.
Mr. Salesses [continuing]. The Secretary can review and
make a decision on how that support will either be continued or
adjusted.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. I would agree with that.
Mr. Salesses. I just would like to add something else,
Senator, if I could.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Sure.
Mr. Salesses. I do think that all of us now, because of the
unique environment that we are in, as we talked about
extremism, I know we talked a lot about intelligence
assessments and those types of things, and they are critical to
this effort, really being able to predict. But I think we also
need to anticipate when we see large crowds gathering in the
National Capital Region. They are all permitted by the Park
Police, so we know when they are going to be here. We need to
do a better job anticipating that kind of activity so that we
think about the most likely and most dangerous scenarios that
we face.
With that, we need to plan together; we need to train
together; we need to exercise together. We need to have an
integrated security plan here for the NCR. As I mentioned in my
opening statement about the number of law enforcement
organizations that we have here in the NCR and the different
jurisdictional responsibilities, we need to bring them together
so we know how we are going to operate in these complex
environments that we are facing right now. Then we need to
understand the critical capabilities that each of us can bring
to that, and we need to make sure that we have prearranged
agreements to provide those capabilities in a timely fashion.
The challenge is when you start from zero and you are faced
with the challenges that we were faced with on the 6th
collectively, that is a very difficult position to start from.
I think if we work at some of those things, I think we can be
much more effective, and the Department of Defense really looks
forward to working with people on that.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes, and I had a very good meeting
with the head of the Joint Chiefs. He actually gave one of the
highest civilian honors to one of our heroes here, and I was
able to talk with him about this. I think that is a moment--I
thought that Ms. Sanborn said it best when she said she has
always learned and improved. It is hard to do that in an
environment like this, and I know it is not easy as we ask
these questions, especially when people think, well, yes, OK,
maybe we messed up this part of it, but how about those guys?
But we know there are things that can be done better, and so I
really appreciate that.
I do not know if the two of you want to add anything to my
question, and that will be it for me.
Ms. Sanborn. Nothing to add, ma'am.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Ms. Smislova.
Ms. Smislova. No, nothing.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. OK. Very good.
Chairman Peters. Once again I would like to thank our
witnesses for joining us here today. This was a very long
hearing. I appreciate your perseverance in dealing with
certainly a number of very tough questions, and we all
appreciate your answers.
There is no question from what I have been hearing over
these last two hearings that there were serious breakdowns in
our intelligence gathering and security planning that resulted
in significant violence right here on the Capitol Grounds. The
three hour and 19-minute delay in authorizing the deployment of
the National Guard to respond to the Capitol to quell the
violence was one that left police, Members of Congress, staff,
and the public in danger and is without question completely
unacceptable.
The breakdown in communication in the chain of command
within the Department of Defense that contributed to this
delay, a stark difference from the Department of Defense's
response during the summer protests, is concerning and should
never, ever happen again.
I remain concerned that our national security agencies are
simply not adequately focused on domestic terrorism, which we
all agree is the number one terrorist threat to our homeland.
The potential for violence was well known and widely
disseminated all across social media platforms in the days
leading up to January 6th, yet the very agencies responsible
for monitoring and evaluating those threats failed to utilize
every investigative tool to gather the readily available
intelligence warnings of violence and failed to assess this
intelligence.
The intelligence community's family directly contributed to
law enforcement's inadequate preparation on January 6th, and I
understand the FBI and the DHS' commitment today to doing
better in their intelligence collection and monitoring this
threat, which I appreciate, but we need to actually see these
improvements. It has to be demonstrated in a meaningful way.
It is not enough for agencies to simply promise to do
better. Congress must make reforming our counterterrorism
efforts a top priority.
We need to take a hard look at reforming the DHS Office of
Intelligence and Analysis and requiring both DHS and FBI to
provide more concrete information to law enforcement so that
they can take actions to protect our communities from this
violent and deadly threat.
Following today's hearing, I will continue my
investigation, and we will continue to interview other
officials and experts as we work toward additional problems and
potential solutions, and I am committed to working with my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle, across multiple
committees, to ensure that we are setting policy that will
provide the foundation for our national security agencies'
threat and treat domestic violence threat with the seriousness
that it certainly warrants and help protect Americans all
across our country.
With that I close, and thank you again, Chairwoman
Klobuchar, for working with me on this hearing today.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Chairman Peters.
I also thank Ranking Members Blunt and Portman. We have done
every part of this hearing together and agreed on witnesses and
agreed on how we were going to proceed. We felt that was very
important. This is a political environment enough without
politicizing this, and we have tried our best to be
constructive.
Now we have had two hearings, and we all know we have had
some consensus on many things. We have had consensus from our
witnesses that there is significant evidence that there was an
element of this that was planned and coordinated involving
white supremacists and violent extremists, people intent on
doing damage not only just to this building, as we are reminded
as we stood on the inaugural stage with now-President Biden,
with still spray paint at the bottom of the columns and still
surrounded by what had just happened there only two weeks
before. They were intent not just on destroying the physical
building that we work in, but also our democracy that brought
us to that moment.
As an aside, I really was proud of the work that Senator
Blunt did in planning that Inauguration, but also the work we
did that night when, at 4 a.m., it was just the two of us a
Vice President Pence walking with two young pages that had the
mahogany box with the remaining ballots in it to go over to the
House. People were doing their jobs, just as you do your jobs.
As I said earlier, I thought this was best summed up by Ms.
Sanborn when she talked about their after-actions, when they
look at, as I know I did when I was a prosecutor--sometimes
with law enforcement, sometimes about cases, sometimes about
why a domestic violence case--I mean domestic violence as in
the home--got to the point that it did. We would look back at
decisions that had been made. Now, back then we could do it in
rooms just with ourselves, and that is a lot easier than this.
I am sure you are doing that in your own agencies. But we have
a public duty of oversight and a public duty to get this
information out, and sometimes around this place the only way
we can get the change and maybe the resources that you need,
Ms. Sanborn, that Director Wray was talking about or the work
that you were talking about, Mister--the man with the hardest
name at this hearing. [Laughter.]
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Mr. Salesses, that you were talking
about to be able to bring people together that we need to for
the planning ahead of time so we do not get to that moment of
chaos--not only chaos at the Capitol but chaos that, of course,
General Walker encountered when he was trying to get a decision
that day.
A lot of this is stepping back, planning ahead. I
personally think that it has been very difficult during the
pandemic for people to meet like they used to meet when they
were planning ahead. Thankfully, with the recent announcements
we have had, we hope to be through that so people can once
again be meeting face to face and across jurisdictions. I think
that would make a difference.
As we look at the changes which Chairman Peters so well
laid out, I think additional ones, again, which I keep harping
on, is that the Capitol Police Board, I just think having been
in law enforcement myself, this is just a recipe for disaster
to have crisis decisions made by a group of people on the scene
or even leading up to it.
I also think we know that, as we learned after 9/11, as was
pointed out by some of our Senators, you can learn from
horrible, horrific events and then do better with sharing
intelligence, that maybe old ways that people were getting used
to with sending emails or maybe speaking up at a meeting, maybe
the right people were not in that room. Or perhaps they are not
looking at all the information because they are overloaded, and
you have to find a way to triage it so they actually realize
something is important.
I personally think with everything that went on in the last
year, there was some underestimation of the potential violence
of these particular groups, which we now know all too well. I
also want to thank everyone involved in law enforcement, not
just for keeping us safe that day but for the work that they
are doing all across the country to bring justice to those like
Officer Sicknick who lost his life and those who were injured
in terms of pursuing these cases, some of which are very
straightforward because they put it on their own Facebook page,
but some of which are a lot harder to figure out what the
coordination is and what happened.
We all know there are still questions coming out of all of
this--again, some of them, I am sure, very difficult because a
lot of people were trying to do their jobs that day, and
mistakes were made. But we do have to get to the bottom of some
of this, at the same time not losing track of our intent. There
may be longer investigations that go on on all of this, but our
intent right now is to make sure that we make smart changes
getting the people in place at the Capitol. Senator Peters and
I do not control that, but we can give our advice based on what
we hear, and also making the structural changes that can make
it easier for you all to do your jobs to keep this country safe
and for us to do our jobs as well.
Thank you very much, and we will keep the record of this
hearing open for two weeks, and the hearing is adjourned. Thank
you.
[Whereupon, at 2:06 p.m., the Committees were adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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