[Senate Hearing 117-112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 117-112

                 OVERSIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL
                    POLICE FOLLOWING THE JANUARY 6TH
                     ATTACK ON THE CAPITOL, PART II

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            DECEMBER 7, 2021

                               __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Rules and Administration
    
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    


                  Available on http://www.govinfo.gov

                                __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-372                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                
                 
                  
                 COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION

                             FIRST SESSION

                  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
             Rachelle Schroeder, Republican Staff Director
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                  Pages

                         Opening Statement of:

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota.............................................     1
Hon. Roy Blunt, a United States Senator from the State of 
  Missouri.......................................................     3
Michael A. Bolton, Inspector General, United States Capitol 
  Police, Washington, DC.........................................     6

                         Prepared Statement of:

Michael A. Bolton, Inspector General, United States Capitol 
  Police, Washington, DC.........................................    27

                  Questions Submitted for the Record:

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota to Michael A. Bolton, Inspector General, 
  United States Capitol Police, Washington, DC...................    33
Hon. Roy Blunt, a United States Senator from the State of 
  Missouri to Michael A. Bolton, Inspector General, United States 
  Capitol Police, Washington, DC.................................    33

 
OVERSIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE FOLLOWING THE JANUARY 6TH 
                     ATTACK ON THE CAPITOL, PART II

                              ----------                              


                       TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2021

                               United States Senate
                      Committee on Rules and Administration
                                                     Washington, DC
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in 
Room 301, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Amy Klobuchar, 
Chairwoman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Klobuchar, Blunt, Warner, King, Padilla, 
Ossoff, Cruz, Capito, and Fischer.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE AMY KLOBUCHAR, CHAIRWOMAN, A 
       UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Good morning. I call to order this 
hearing, which is the Rules Committee's oversight hearing of 
the United States Capitol Police following the January 6th 
attack on the Capitol. As you know, Senator Blunt and I have 
led a series of hearings over improvements that must be made, 
changes that must be made, and we joined forces with Senators 
Peters and Portman of the Homeland Security Committee so that 
we had a more comprehensive look at the security failures on 
January 6th, which of course included mistakes at the top of 
the Capitol Police, mistakes of leadership within this 
building, and then mistakes on the side of the Defense 
Department and other agencies.
    We are greatly appreciative of what Mr. Michael Bolton, the 
Inspector General for the Capitol Police, has done. I want to 
thank you for being here, Inspector General Bolton. We welcome 
your wife, who is also with us today. We will try not to ask 
her questions if you cannot answer them. I think, you know the 
significance of this moment. We are here just over 11 months 
after the violent insurrection at the Capitol. Why? Because 
this Committee has the responsibility of oversight of the 
police.
    As we approach this year's end, we will hear more today 
about the measures that have already been taken to improve the 
Capitol Police Department's preparedness and operations, as 
well as the work that still needs to be done. You, Inspector 
General, put together a comprehensive list. I remember Senator 
Blunt and I reviewing it as we prepared our own 
recommendations, a comprehensive list of over 100 
recommendations. We consolidated some of those, came up with 
some of our own that, as I noted, were outside of the police 
department as well.
    I think January 6th is a pretty good date to get the vast 
number of these things done, which we will be telling the 
Sergeant of Arms of both bodies, as well as the Capitol Police 
Chief. But we know progress has been made, and in the new year 
we will continue this discussion as our first hearing will be 
with the new Capitol Police Chief and then we can get much more 
focused on the details of our own recommendations. In June, the 
week before you testified Mr. Bolton, before this Committee, we 
issued our bipartisan report with the Homeland Security 
Committee, as I noted, focused on the security, planning, and 
response failures of that day, that unprecedented, horrific 
day.
    Our report laid out key findings and recommendations. 
Importantly, as I noted, progress has been made in putting many 
of those recommendations in place. We recommended that the 
Capitol Police produce a department-wide operational plan for 
all large scale events at the Capitol, and now those plans are 
standard procedure and have been used several times since then. 
The Department has also worked to improve its handling of 
intelligence, including by making sure that information is 
shared with rank and file officers, another of our 
recommendations. We said that Congress should provide 
sufficient funding to support Capitol Police training and 
equipment requirements, as well as needed staffing levels.
    In July, President Biden signed our emergency funding 
legislation into law, which passed both houses of this 
Congress, to deliver resources to do just that. Significant 
resources in the supplemental budget that many of us on this 
Committee worked with Senator Leahy, who is a member of this 
Committee, as well as Senator Shelby, to make sure that these 
resources were included. We did not want to wait until year 
end. We wanted to get it done immediately. That legislation 
also provided funding for mental health support for officers, 
something I have strongly supported.
    Another recommendation was for the Capitol Police Board to 
appoint a new Police Chief, which it did in July with the 
selection of Chief Manger. For the past several months, Chief 
Manger has worked to make needed changes and implement 
recommendations, both from our report as well as from your 
Inspector General reports, Mr. Bolton. At our last hearing with 
you, you updated us on the review of Capitol Police policies 
and practices since the insurrection, including on the four 
reports you had issued at that time. Since then, you have 
finished three more reports detailing issues that impacted the 
Department's response to the events of January 6th, and you are 
finishing a final report outlining your findings and progress 
to address them.
    Significantly, you have issued a total of 104 
recommendations, of which 30 have now been implemented, in an 
effort to ensure that the Department is equipped to fulfill its 
mission. It is not as though work is not being done on the 
other recommendations. As you know, they are in progress. As I 
noted, we will have an ideal moment at the beginning of January 
to go back through with the Chief himself, the work that needs 
to be done, the work that is done. This kind of alert to those 
working on these recommendations, not just--not just with the 
Capitol Police, but the other agencies as well, that they get 
their work done. This work is crucial to improving the security 
of the Capitol and also to supporting the brave officers who 
served heroically in unimaginable circumstances.
    It was an honor to stand with some of those officers with 
Senator Blunt and their families as the President signed our 
bipartisan legislation to honor the heroes who defended our 
democracy with the Congressional Gold Medal. We owe it to these 
courageous officers to make sure they have the resources and 
support and the rules in place to do their jobs. Since January 
6th, anyone that walks around this Capitol, talks to officers 
as I do, asks officers questions, sees how they are doing, you 
find out, one, that there has been some improvement in morale, 
which I think is really important. They lost so many of their 
fellow officers, including those who sadly died by suicide. But 
we also know from them there continue to be staff shortages. We 
have now put the money forward for that but this police 
department, like many across the country, is facing staff 
shortages and we must fill those jobs.
    As our country moves forward, we know that there are many 
issues that merit serious consideration. A major investigation, 
which I support is going on, a bipartisan investigation, in the 
House of Representatives, looking back at the root causes of 
what happened.
    Our job today is to look at the security at the Capitol, 
and I look forward to discussing your findings, Inspector 
General Bolton, the progress that has been made at the Capitol 
Police Department in the past several months, and certainly the 
work that lies ahead not only with the Capitol Police 
Department but getting answers to the other issues we raised in 
our report, along with Senator Peters and Senator Portman, with 
regard to the other agencies and how they work with the Capitol 
Police.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Bolton, and we look forward to 
hearing from you. I will turn it over to my friend and 
colleague, Senator Blunt.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE ROY BLUNT, A UNITED STATES 
               SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

    Senator Blunt. Well, thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Again, 
and thank you also for your focus on these issues. I think the 
fact that we quickly began to look into what had happened and 
try to come up with our own recommendations, and as I think you 
also pointed out, we referenced the IG's recommendations at the 
time, and I know the new recommendations we are going to hear 
about today.
    This is the fourth hearing that this Committee has had 
regarding the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and the second 
time we have had a chance to have the United States Capitol 
Police Inspector General come and be here with us today. I 
appreciate the opportunity to talk to him as he concludes what 
is his 11 month investigation. It began also immediately. There 
were recommendations made immediately and others to be made 
today. Glad to have Mr. Bolton's wife, Bridget here with us 
today, and I will share Senator Klobuchar's view that we will 
not ask her any questions that you are not able to answer.
    But I know she is proud of your work, and I know the amount 
of work you have had to put in to cover this territory, to come 
up with all the recommendations you have over the last 11 
months has meant that your family has had to be an important 
and patient part of that, and we are grateful to Bridget for 
what she has done to support this work as well. The impact on 
the Department has been clear, though I think we are still 
trying to be sure we fully understand the impact today. You 
know, the detailed 104 recommendations from your office made 
with the help of the Department's Operational Readiness 
Committee has made a difference already. As I have said before, 
what you do and what we have talked about and what your report 
makes clear, and what Senator Klobuchar just mentioned, you 
know, the front line officers were the true heroes that day.
    They defended the Capitol bravely and without hesitation, 
particularly those officers at that door on the west side of 
the Capitol secured that door for a significant period of time, 
never even getting the information that there were already 
people who had breached the building in other ways. My 
colleagues and I remain incredibly grateful for the dedication 
of the Capitol Police and what they do to not just protect the 
Congress but protect everyone who works here and everyone who 
visits here, and it is incredibly important. I would like to 
highlight two divisions that were subjects of your most recent 
flash report.
    They, according to your report, and something that we all, 
I think, had no surprise in, you described their performance as 
exceptional and excellent, the Dignitary Protection Division 
and the Hazard Incident Response Division. First, the Dignitary 
Protection Unit, the Division successfully evacuated and 
relocated all of the congressional protectees on January 6th, 
even without having the critical intelligence that they would 
have needed in advance to know the kinds of things that might 
happen that day.
    Second, the Hazardous Incident Response Division disposed 
of multiple hazardous devices found on or near the Capitol 
campus. Later that day, those teams conducted sweeps of the 
Capitol grounds and buildings, which really allowed us to get 
back to the important work of the joint session. You know that 
division could have created all kinds of, since, well, we need 
to have more time, we are worn out, we are exhausted.
    Nobody did that and that allowed us to get back in the 
Capitol, and I think Senator Klobuchar and Senator Warner and 
others here were back in the Capitol by 8 o'clock or so, and 
when we left the Capitol at 3:30 a.m. that morning, Senator 
Klobuchar, we were able to do that knowing that that building 
had been secured by the Capitol Police, who also understood, I 
think, the importance of the work we do here. It would have 
been an easy minute--there would have been an easy moment to 
say, well, let's come back tomorrow or we need another 48 
hours. But the Capitol Police and particularly the unit that 
had to do the sweep of the Capitol also shared and understood 
the importance of the work we do here.
    Any comments or questions I have today regarding any 
deficiencies of the Capitol Police are certainly not meant to 
disparage or reflect on the rank and file or diminish their 
actions on the 6th. Frankly, our questions, I think, and 
certainly mine are likely to continue to be about the 
leadership failures that day. I think the Committee should 
hear, and I am glad that the Chairwoman has decided we will 
hear, in January from Chief Manger. There is no better time to 
find out what the Capitol Police have done in what will then 
have been the past 12 months to be sure that this kind of thing 
cannot happen again.
    If it does happen again, we would be much better prepared 
for it in ways that would ensure, frankly, that the kind of 
events that happened that day would not be successfully 
repeated or even attempted. It is important that we understand 
limitations that have prevented the Capitol Police from fully 
implementing the recommendations that you made, and our 
Committee has made. But there better be limits that makes sense 
whenever we have a chance to talk to the Chief about those 
limits in this Committee in January. Chairwoman and I drafted 
legislation that would provide the Police Chief with unilateral 
authority to request emergency assistance from the National 
Guard.
    Even this week, Senator Klobuchar, we are reading stories 
about some of the testimony that we took in--eight months ago 
and finding out that that testimony is still is highly dubious 
as it appeared to be the day we took that testimony. We work 
with our colleagues with the supplemental bill to provide the 
Department with additional necessary funding for salaries. Many 
officers were reaching their salary cap and obviously with the 
officers leaving, the officers that remained were asked to do 
more and more.
    We have also looked at overtime pay, at trauma support, 
riot control equipment for all officers, and specialized 
training for those officers that need to be part of specialized 
units. I think we are going to work together to see that the 
officers are better trained, better equipped, and better 
prepared. We owe that to the front line officers and their 
families.
    They do everything they can every day to protect the 
Members of Congress, the congressional officers, employees, and 
visitors to the Capitol on a daily basis, and we are grateful 
for that, and glad you are here today.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Well, thank you very much, Senator 
Blunt. When I think of that day, I think of the two of us, as 
you noted at 3:30 in the morning, walking across those 
hallways, those corridors with broken glass on every side, with 
those two young women, with the mahogany box, with the last of 
the electoral ballots.
    I think that is forever seared in our memories. Much of 
this is not just getting to the root causes, which is critical 
to what is happening in the House, but it is making sure it 
never happens again. That is going to be about both the 
improvements we have made and will make with the Capitol Police 
and the agencies that are affiliated with them and making sure 
that there is better coordination and intelligence sharing and 
the like. I also want to note we have been joined by Senator 
Warner, who is on this Committee and also is the chair of the 
Intelligence Committee, so this will be helpful to have him 
here, as well as Senator King and Senator Padilla and Senator 
Capito. We thank them for being with us today.
    I will now introduce our witness, Mr. Michael Bolton, the 
Inspector General for the United States Capitol Police. Mr. 
Bolton has served in the Capitol Police Office of the Inspector 
General for 15 years. He was appointed as Inspector General in 
January 2019. Earlier in his career, he served as Special Agent 
in charge of the Treasury Department's Office of Investigation 
for four years. He also served for 21 years with the United 
States Secret Service.
    Mr. Bolton holds a degree in criminal justice from the 
University of Maryland. I will now swear in our witness. Mr. 
Bolton, will you please stand and raise your right hand. Do you 
swear that the testimony you will give before the Committee 
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you, God?
    Mr. Bolton. I do.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. You are now recognized for 
your testimony.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. BOLTON, INSPECTOR GENERAL, 
          UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Bolton. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair Klobuchar, 
Ranking Member Blunt, and distinguished Members of the 
Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you 
at the Committee of Senate Rules and Administration to discuss 
and review events in regards to the Capitol Police Department's 
operation, programs, and policies that were in effect during 
January 6, 2021. I would like to extend my appreciation to the 
Committee for holding this hearing and the important work that 
this Committee continues to do to make the Capitol complex safe 
and secure.
    I always like to take the time and extend and recognize the 
outstanding efforts and work done by my staff in the Office of 
Inspector General. Through their collective efforts and skills, 
we have produced eight flash reports outlining areas of 
improvement for the Department, resulting in 104 
recommendations. Our last and final flash report is a summary 
of the status of the recommendations we have made and security 
improvements that the Department has made since January 6th.
    Although the Department has addressed some of our 
recommendations and have made security improvements throughout 
the Capitol complex, much work still needs to be addressed in 
relation to training, intelligence, cultural change, and 
operational planning. We are currently finalizing our final 
flash report, which we anticipate issuing within the next few 
days. Since my last hearing before this Committee, we have 
issued three additional flash reports. These reports include 
areas in the Department, such as Communication Coordination 
Bureau, the Hazards Incident Response Division, K-9 Unit, and 
finally Dignitary Protection Division, and Human Capital. Our 
fifth flash report was designed to communicate deficiencies 
within the Department's Command and Coordination Bureau.
    Additionally, to gain a perspective on department-wide 
command and control challenges, on January 6th, we contacted 86 
officers and completed interviews with 36 of them who agreed to 
be interviewed. We also reviewed 49 after action reports the 
United States Capitol Police officers and employees completed. 
Based on our interviews with the Capitol Police officers and 
review of it after action reports, we identified department-
wide command and control deficiencies related to information 
sharing, chain of command direction, communication, 
preparedness, training, leadership development, emergency 
response procedures, and law enforcement coordination.
    Our sixth flash report was designed to communicate 
deficiencies with the Department's Hazardous Incident Response 
Division and K-9 unit. Deficiencies included the lack of 
adequate Department guidance for both units. The Department did 
not always comply with guidelines related to K-9 operations or 
training and did not always ensure K-9 policies and procedures 
were up to date.
    A lack of K-9 related training or operational experience 
required for officials and formal guidance for emergency 
procedures, as well as inadequate hazardous device response 
guidance, could have hampered the efficiency of the K-9 unit on 
January 6th. Our seventh flash report was designed to 
communicate inefficiencies with Department's Dignitary 
Protection Division and Human Capital. The Dignitary Protective 
Division contributed towards--greatly contributed towards the 
Department's mission through proper training and successfully 
evacuating individuals under its protection during January 6th.
    However, the Dignitary Protection Division incurred 
authorization issues with staging evacuation vehicles on 
January 6th, in addition to training programs, lacked a 
dedicated training staff, facilities issues, and weapons system 
training integration. USCP could not provide documentation 
supporting that it implemented those recommendations. Our 
eighth and final flash report is a summary of the status of our 
104 recommendations and any security improvements made by the 
Department since January 6th. Although the Department has made 
several changes to include updating policies and procedures, 
additional training for CDU units, the Civil Disturbance Units, 
and the hiring of a subject matter expert in the planning and 
coordination of large events or high profile demonstrations, 
the Department still has more work to achieve the goal of 
making the Capitol complex safe and secure.
    Out of the 200 security enhancements that the Department 
has provided to the OIG, only 61 of those items have supporting 
documentation to support those enhancements to have occurred. 
Some of the other security enhancements the Department has 
instituted has been an additional intelligence briefings 
provided to the rank and file, as well as to Department 
leadership. The Department still lacks an overall training 
infrastructure to meet the needs of the Department. The level 
of intelligence gathering, and expertise needed, and an overall 
cultural change needed to move the Department into a protective 
agency as opposed to a traditional police department.
    In conclusion, the Department is comprised of extraordinary 
men and women who are dedicated to protecting democracy, 
putting their own lives in harm's way in order for Congress to 
exercise their constitutional duties in a safe and open manner. 
It is our duty to honor those officers who have given their 
lives, but also ensuring the safety of all those working and 
visiting the Capitol complex by making hard changes within the 
Department.
    Finally, I would like to thank not only this Committee, but 
also the Committee on House Administration and the Select 
Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack for their 
continuing support of my office and the work they have done in 
protecting democracy so that events such as January 6th never 
happen again. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before 
you today. I will be very happy to answer any questions the 
Committee may have.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Bolton was submitted for the 
record.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Bolton. We 
will never forget the words of one officer on January 6th 
picked up on the radio, ``Does anybody have a plan?'' in the 
middle of the insurrection. In your report on command and 
control issues, you found that there was no plan. The 
Department did not have adequate procedures for coordinated 
emergency responses, officers were not briefed in intelligence, 
and there was a lack of direction about what to do about the 
attack. You recommended that officers be given briefings at 
roll calls on potential hazards. Can you elaborate on what was 
lacking in this area on January 6th? How has that changed?
    Mr. Bolton. Thank you. That has changed in a couple of 
different ways. First, they have hired from the outside a 
subject matter expert for operational planning. As evident, as 
you probably saw the difference on September 18th, 
demonstrations that we had up here just recently. The signal 
they have started attending--intelligence division analysts 
started attending roll calls to provide briefings to the 
officers as well as to the command staff, whether it be the 
sergeants and above, the lieutenants and inspectors. They are 
now receiving daily briefings and receiving the appropriate 
threat assessments. In addition, every officer has been 
provided a Government cell phone for any alerts on campus and, 
or recall messages that may be needed.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. You recommended, you mentioned 
this in your testimony, that the Department establish 
comprehensive lockdown procedures for the Capitol complex to 
account for various potential hazards. How would these plans 
improve safety in emergency situations? Have you received any 
response from the Department as to how they are going to 
implement them?
    Mr. Bolton. They are in the process of updating their 
policies and procedures. In addition to that, they have started 
conducting training, making sure that not only do the officers 
on post, but also as well as the officials around have 
knowledge of the lockdown procedures. You need to have that 
coordinated effort, if we indeed need to have another lockdown. 
Everybody knows how to do those procedures in a quick and 
timely manner so that we can lock this building down quickly.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. The emergency supplemental funding 
legislation signed into law in July included significant new 
funding for the officers' access to equipment. We noted the 
need for funding for equipment in our joint report, after 
finding that 75 percent of the officers--900 of 1,200 on duty 
that day--were forced to defend the Capitol in their regular 
uniforms. Do you agree that this funding should help the 
Department improve officers' access to protective equipment? 
What steps have been taken to address this issue?
    Mr. Bolton. The Department has just recently purchased new 
equipment to include either replacement of those shields that 
we had talked about in the previous flash reports where they 
were more properly stored, they are now storing them properly. 
They have the additional munitions now, up to date. Now they 
have improved, and now they have also conducted joint training 
for the CDU units, the Civil Disturbance Units, so they are 
conducting the joint training and getting the training and 
getting the equipment needed.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. In our last hearing, you noted in 
response to questions that the Department was suffering from 
low morale. Do you still see that as a major challenge facing 
the Department? Do you have any comments on the Department's 
effort to recruit new officers? Obviously, all the overtime, 
the repeated day after day after day of working would take a 
toll on anyone.
    This is, of course, coming after having been through that 
insurrection, not properly trained, not properly equipped, and 
not properly led. That is what we are dealing with here and we 
know what a problem it has been.
    Mr. Bolton. When you talk about morale, that is a difficult 
thing to pinpoint as far as getting a definitive feel for 
morale. That is something anecdotal that you may get from time 
to time is the thing. But I would say that their morale has 
generally increased, or we have gotten better since obviously 
the--because they are seeing some changes.
    The officers and the rank and file are starting to see that 
things are starting to turn around a little bit. The Department 
is actively recruiting those--they have been filling the 
classes with--down the--in fact, they just had one just 
recently just before Thanksgiving that they sent down to the 
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
    They are starting to see some improvement, but I think the 
officers are in that wait and see mode. They want to see what 
else are we going to do. They do recognize it does take time, 
but also they are watching leadership and watching the 
community at large, how we are going to move forward.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Well, as you know, there has been a 
massive change in leadership, both at the Sergeant of Arms 
levels for both the House and the Senate, as well as a new 
Police Chief. Do you think that the selection of a permanent 
Chief has impacted the Department's ability to make needed 
changes? What issues, when this Committee has the Chief before 
us at the beginning of next year, what things should we be 
pushing for in your opinion and what maybe keeps you up at 
night that has not gotten done yet?
    Mr. Bolton. Besides having two kids, a lot of things keep 
me up at night. Certainly having a permanent Chief, that is one 
step forward. Because it is very difficult when you start and 
try and make changes when you are having an acting--somebody in 
an acting capacity that does. Those are important to fulfill.
    The areas that I have some concern still is major--two 
major is training, a training infrastructure, a proper one in 
intelligence. One, intelligence is still considered a division 
as opposed to being a bureau level. They have yet to hire a 
permanent Director to head up the intelligence. I would like to 
see that certainly position be filled with an individual who 
has the necessary skills and abilities to elevate that 
intelligence into the bureau level. Now, training, which we are 
already conducting--we have actually started.
    Our next job is not a flash report, it is our normal type 
of job that we have with our annual plan. We are looking at 
training services bureaus from top to bottom, and we anticipate 
that report will be issued sometime in February, that we want 
to see training become the flagship of this Department, much 
like when we view Quantico's and the Secret Service Rowley 
Training Center, you look at their org chart compared to ours, 
we are nowhere near close and we need to have a training 
service bureau infrastructure that is going to handle all the 
training.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay, thanks. I will let Senator 
Warner talk about intelligence sharing. My last question is 
just, the Defense Department, relationships with the Defense 
Department, which obviously there was much help of our National 
Guard here at the Capitol. We now--that has been drawn down. 
But as we look forward to how we have better coordinated 
efforts, if ever necessary, in the future, any recommendations 
on that? That was a major problem as well.
    Mr. Bolton. I think a lot of this is going to be 
continuously have the training, integrated training, whether it 
would be the National Guard, Metropolitan Police Department, 
and that kind of goes right back to the Training Services 
Bureau is the one who should be handling that and making those 
relationships stronger within the realm of training. It needs 
to be a continuing. That is what also worries me is that yes, 
we are getting--like, still the central unit is getting trained 
now. Is it going to be continuous?
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Yes. I will ask you about this 
later. I will let my colleagues go. But part of this was, you 
know, having the Defense Department on the ready and the 
soldiers on the ready to help us out. We ended up, of course, 
with Senator Warner's National Guard there in Virginia and 
other ones stepped in. But there was, in our opinion, some 
delays that were very costly. Senator Blunt.
    Senator Blunt. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Mr. Bolton, 
when we had our last hearing with you, I think it was pointed 
out that most of the recommendations that you had made up until 
that time could be done, the majority of them could be done 
without the Police Board being involved or without any even 
additional funds. How many of your, I think now around 104 
recommendations, have been implemented?
    Mr. Bolton. Out of 104, we have 30.
    Senator Blunt. 30?
    Mr. Bolton. Yes, sir.
    Senator Blunt. Are you getting significant pushback on the 
remaining 74?
    Mr. Bolton. Not at this time. We have not gotten any 
pushback. There may be some, the recommendations that we will 
have to sit down with the Chief and with the Board to hash out 
the very nature of what we are looking for, and then would make 
the changes and what they feel also--what is comfortable for 
them.
    Senator Blunt. Your first set, your first recommendations 
were available to them when?
    Mr. Bolton. We first issued our first flash report, I 
believe it was sometime in, was it March?
    Senator Blunt. That is what I was thinking.
    Mr. Bolton. Yes, it was March, and it was--that was the 
intelligence and operational planning flash report in which 
they have, as far as the operational plan. They do have that 
department-wide operational plan now being produced in a 
singular document.
    Senator Blunt. Do you have regularly scheduled meetings 
with the department leadership to talk about those 
recommendations and the implementation of them?
    Mr. Bolton. Recently, we have not had a meeting with the 
Chief, but I am sure he is busy with trying to assimilate 
through with the Department, all the other issues that he has. 
I do attend the monthly board meeting so that there is an 
opportunity there and then I do brief the Board on a quarterly 
basis.
    Senator Blunt. You have not had a meeting with the Chief 
yet, the two of you?
    Mr. Bolton. We have had one meeting. I think that--I 
believe was back in August and when we had our initial meeting.
    Senator Blunt. Are there any recommendations that you have 
made that you can clearly see resistance in the Department?
    Mr. Bolton. I believe there probably may be a couple that 
they have, at least as indicated to me, there may be 
resistance. One is with the CERT teams, the Containment 
Emergency Response Teams, and issues concerning a potential, 
with about security clearances. That was with one of, I 
remember one of our recommendations is that every sworn and 
civilian would either have a top secret, or at worst, a secret 
clearance. There seems to be some hesitation toward moving 
toward that.
    Senator Blunt. Why do you think that is?
    Mr. Bolton. It has not been expressed to me directly. I 
think some of it is potentially having to change your hiring 
standards, what to do with those who are already on the job 
that came on the job without that particular hiring standard. 
So and also with will be issues that the union may raise. I do 
not know of any specific ones, but they may, so there may be 
some concern about what the union may feel about their folks 
having to get clearances and maintain those clearances.
    There is always the fear that once you expend that 
additional funds, which is going to be additional funding, to 
get the clearances, that you will have to pay for those, that 
your individuals may end up leaving to another Federal agency 
with that clearance because that is a sought after tool within 
the rest of the Federal Government, that if you already have a 
clearance, then it makes it much easier to move to another 
Federal agency.
    Senator Blunt. How many officers have left the Department 
since January 6th?
    Mr. Bolton. I do not have the exact numbers as far as 
those, but I believe it has been around 200 or so.
    Senator Blunt. How many--are there jobs where we are having 
sworn officers that have the sworn level of training do jobs 
that somebody else could do? Have we got the right match of 
training and jobs that are being done in the Capitol complex by 
officers?
    Mr. Bolton. If you are talking about the, what is being 
proposed right now, where you may have some contract, think of 
it as the court security officers that you see at the United 
States Marshals, those gals and guys in the blue blazers and 
pants doing basically mag checkpoints there, and providing 
those--something similar.
    I know that that right now is in discussion with the Board 
and Department on bringing over some maybe potentially 
contracted folks to augment the officers to one, to allow them 
to be able to get their days off, cut down a little bit on the 
overtime, and also to provide that the officers would be able 
to get the much needed training.
    So that I know those things are in a discussion right now 
between the Board and Department, and I imagine some with the 
Committees as well.
    Senator Blunt. With 200 officers or so retiring or leaving 
the force this year, what percentage of vacant jobs are there 
in the Capitol Police?
    Mr. Bolton. I would say it would probably be that number. I 
think that is what they are down. I think they are authorized 
1,800 or so, and they are in an area right now, either 1,600 or 
1,500, I am not exactly sure of the numbers that they have. But 
they are down significantly of officers, and they need to be 
able to bring at least folks on that can augment that because 
think, even if you hire somebody today, you are talking over a 
year before you get them on post.
    By the time they get done with FLETC, Federal Law 
Enforcement Training Center, and an even--by the time you get 
all that training done, get them through their on the job 
training, when they are with another officer learning about the 
actual post and everything, you are talking almost a year 
before they are operational.
    What they are thinking and proposing now is to be able to 
get immediate help, or to augment those officers, and identify 
posts that may not require--strictly still provide some 
training, but it is not the same extensive training that you 
are giving somebody who is coming on a job for law enforcement.
    Senator Blunt. My last question for this round, one of the 
things we did in the supplemental funding was waive the maximum 
limits that officers could be paid during a year. Are we going 
to face that again this year with that big a shortage of--from 
the full force? Are we going to face that same situation again 
where one, we have more overtime than the officers or their 
families want them to have, and two, get officers at a point 
before September 30th, the end of the Fiscal Year, that they 
have already reached their maximum income potential?
    Mr. Bolton. I would anticipate that you will probably find 
yourselves in the same position through the remainder of this 
Fiscal Year and potentially into Fiscal Year 2023. It will take 
a while to get folks on board. Not only that, but there are 
certainly things that you cannot dictate or anticipate, whether 
it be additional protests for something that comes up that 
you--nobody knew was coming, that you will, you know, require 
officers to have overtime or late night sessions with Members 
and voting or whatever--something you cannot anticipate.
    Senator Blunt. Well, if you never get more than 90 percent 
of the jobs filled in this organization, either we had expected 
that we have more jobs there than we need, which we know that 
is not the case, or you are going to have people working harder 
and longer hours than you want them to work, and we need to 
begin to think about that. That may be the thing that argues 
the most for looking for whatever jobs are there that do not 
take the same training skills or arms that you need in other 
locations. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very, very much, Senator 
Blunt. Next up, Senator Warner.
    Senator Warner. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Let me just 
say at the outset, as somebody who has not always been a great 
attendee at the Rules Committee, I very much appreciate the way 
that you and the Ranking Member have led this Committee on this 
subject. This Committee's investigation may not have attracted 
the same level of attention that our friends in the House have, 
but I think the fact that you have been professional, 
bipartisan, and looking for the facts and looking for how we 
move forward is a tribute to both of you and the Members of the 
Committee.
    You indicated where I want to go, Mr. Bolton, is the--my 
role from the intelligence standpoint, and I am lucky enough to 
have Senator Blunt and Senator King on the Intelligence 
Committee. I have--you raised the issue about security 
clearances, I know, back in your June report, and one of the 
things I hope that the Capitol Police knows is that this is an 
area that we have focused on for some time. I mean, few years 
back, there was a 750,000 person backlog on security 
clearances. I actually give--one of the few areas that give the 
Trump Administration credit. They worked with us to reform 
that. We have brought that down to about 250,000. We are down 
to about a 30-day wait in terms of a secret clearance.
    I hope that the movement we have made on security clearance 
reform, and you have got to stay on this all the time, and 
reciprocity so that once you get clearance, you can take it 
with you or you can move from entity to entity, we maybe ought 
to give you a briefing so you can get that to the Capitol 
Police. But I am concerned on this intelligence sharing between 
the IC kind of writ large, and DHS and FBI.
    You brought up the point that you were concerned about that 
ability to have that sharing. How do you think--do you think 
progress has been made since June? Are there any more formal 
procedures in place on how Capitol Police shares with DHS, FBI, 
and the IC intelligence?
    Mr. Bolton. I would say that there has been some progress 
where we do have some folks embedded in some of the task force 
and intelligence. I just see it as we need to do more. One, I 
think by again, as I said earlier, making it into Intelligence 
Bureau, having somebody from the intelligence community--has 
lived all their lives. Those folks are, I look at them--anybody 
that comes from the intelligence community, there are folks 
that are cut from a different cloth. They are unique skills and 
sets. You just cannot learn that, and it is something that you 
really--takes time to actually know that kind of field.
    That is where I--the Department needs to recognize that 
they really need to put a lot of resources into the 
Intelligence Bureau. Now I know that you have hired additional 
intelligence analysts. There is a group right now, they are in 
school learning, but there is more that we need to hire, and 
make it a very large and make it something almost similar to 
what maybe the service, the Secret Service has, the FBI--that 
just this area here is, we need to have that kind of abilities, 
especially all around the Capitol complex.
    Senator Warner. Well, I would agree with that, although I 
do not--you know, I am not sure that would mean that every 
Capitol Police officer needs a secret or top secret clearance 
but having a large number--and one of the things that, again 
Senator Blunt, Senator King and I have looked at, just 
communications between different components of the IC. You have 
got to have a classified communication systems in place.
    My fear is if we do not have that kind of classified 
information sharing so you can have real time information, the 
Capitol Police are always going to be at a disadvantage. If you 
have to wait for the FBI or the DHS or some other part of the 
IC to come and brief on a periodic basis, that is always going 
to be a hurdle.
    Do you know whether the Capitol Police has, or has in place 
or are putting in place any kind of classified communications 
so you can go literally online real time and get updates from 
the IC?
    Mr. Bolton. Yes, they do have that capability so they can 
go online and have real life communication with the community, 
whether it be in their skiffs, that they have throughout--they 
had their own skiff as well, so they can do that in real time. 
I just want it real quick. The whole reason for whether or not 
the officers have a top secret or secret clearance, there are a 
couple of components to the reasoning for that.
    One is the insider threat, having an individual that has to 
have a clearance, whether it be on or off duty, making sure 
that their lives comport to what their jobs entail, but it also 
elevates your standards and your expectations of the people 
that you are bringing on. It is a good recruiting tool as well 
that this is what we require, we require a high standard 
individual. That is going to, I believe, that is going to 
attract additional folks to look upon the Capitol Police as a 
job that you would wish to use as a career.
    Senator Warner. Again, one of the things we are working 
through is this issue of reciprocity. If you have--if someone 
is going to move from one part of the IC over to the Capitol 
Police, they could take their clearance with them. That is 
still remaining a problem. I know I have got eight seconds 
left. I am going to go completely to the other end of the 
spectrum. An issue I have been strangely interested in for some 
time is the performance of the K-9 units. You pointed out that 
that was also a challenge in one of your early reports. Is 
there any progress on the Capitol Police use of the dogs?
    Mr. Bolton. Yes, there are. They are starting to get their 
training that they need and making sure they document whenever 
they do. Some of their sweeps, so that they do--they are making 
progress to updating their policies and procedures and getting 
the training. But again, it goes back to I would really like to 
see their training is being conducted by Cheltenham and not by 
the units themselves here. Again, that to me that poses a 
problem. You need to have that separation of duties and make 
sure that it is separated from the day to day operation to 
training, and they need to continue to move forward in that 
area.
    Senator Warner. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you 
for giving me the flexibility to go from security clearances to 
K-9 units.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. Senator Capito, a 
Member of the Appropriations Committee as well. We thank you 
for your help in getting the funding that was needed.
    Senator Capito. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you Ranking 
Member Blunt too. I thank you, Inspector General Bolton, for 
being here. I do think it bears repeating how appalling January 
6th attack was for all of us and it remains a stain on our 
democracy, so I appreciate everything that you have done, but I 
also mostly want to express again my sincere thanks and 
appreciation to all of our Capitol Police officers and law 
enforcement personnel that were protecting our Capitol that 
day.
    It is always great when you are on the dais and the person 
in front of you asks the question that you were going to ask, 
because last time you were here I was asking about the canines, 
and the reason I ask about them from another perspective is 
what the Chairwoman mentioned being on the Appropriations 
Committee, when I was chair for the Capitol Police 
Appropriations, there was a whole lot of talk about expanding 
the use of canines into different types of areas, more 
perimeter, purchase of these dogs--we know the training and the 
purchase, it is very expensive.
    So I do not need for you to repeat. It sounds like it is 
the training aspect as to how they can use the K-9 units 
better. Do you anticipate that as the training improves for the 
canines, that they would expand their different parameters of 
what they can be used for? I know some of them are used for 
sniffing toxic materials. Some of them are used for other, you 
know, obviously inspecting vehicles, those kinds of things. Is 
that the type of thing you are talking about?
    Mr. Bolton. Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. Whether it be the vapor 
wake dogs or the regular traditional canine sweep vehicles, 
having that training is so important and they continuously 
train because you have to make sure that the dogs are 
performing the way they should be performing.
    Senator Capito. Right. The other thing I would say, and I 
think all of us, certainly I do on my phone, as early as this 
morning as I was deciding how to navigate the way into the 
Capitol, I--since January 6th, we are getting repeated messages 
on our phones that raise our awareness as to what streets are 
closed, for what purpose, what is going on on Capitol Hill. I 
think that was one, from a member's perspective, one of the big 
fallacies of that day because we did not know really what was 
going on, where there were safe areas, and----
    Senator King. How is that any different than every day?
    Senator Capito. Well, this is true. This is true. Yes, like 
today, we do not know what is going on, but we do know what 
roads are closed, I will say that. But I do want to express 
appreciation both to the Sergeant of Arms, but also to the 
Capitol Police because they have upped their communications 
with, at least with me personally and I assume everybody, and I 
am appreciative of that because we do need to know, we do use 
it, so the alerts are very useful.
    One of the--you know, one of the aspects that you--I picked 
up in one of your reports is that there was no continuous radio 
contact between the officers. They were having trouble 
coordinating, communicating with one another. Has that been 
improved? It seems to me that would be something that would be, 
I do not want to say anything is easy, but easier to improve 
than maybe some of the long term training aspects of this.
    Mr. Bolton. That would be--that is a hard one too, in a 
sense as far as the communication, as far as--because we have 
not had something similar to that. But I think certainly what I 
would tell you is an improvement is by issuing all the officers 
with Department cell phones, so they can receive those very 
alerts that you just had mentioned, with street closures, to 
give them that situational awareness in real time because there 
is difficult--when you do have an incident, people end up 
overusing the radio and your communications ends up breaking 
down.
    But I think the long term answer to that is through 
additional training and being able to once things get a little 
bit more settled down, to have either tabletop exercises, 
having areas into--instruct its officers how to do radio 
discipline.
    Senator Capito. Well, it seems to be training, training, 
training is the aspect that has come very forward in all of 
your recommendations. I am wondering if there has been or are 
there plans to have like a full out drill of these trainings? 
Drill of a like incident so that you can, you know, deploy 
these training, you know, in real life? You are not just 
sitting in a classroom or looking at something on a computer. 
To your knowledge, has there been a full out drill, an 
evacuation drill? I question the evacuation standards that were 
used to actually remove us from the chamber. Those are 
questions that I am wondering have we actually drilled this 
training?
    Mr. Bolton. What I have seen is that you have to continue 
to do at least the evacuation training, but not the overall, 
which I think is what you are thinking about. They are doing it 
in bits and pieces. The childcare center, where we are 
evacuating that Fairchild Building or some of these individual 
buildings, and we will just do it as opposed to a whole 
encompassing like situation where you had to evacuate the 
entire Capitol complex, which is very difficult to do. Make no 
mistake about that, because especially if Congress is in 
session that is not going to--we are not going to do a training 
exercise if anyone is in session, so it would have to be 
something, or during a break.
    Senator Capito. Well, in my view, the fact that it is very 
difficult to do speaks to the need to do it. Yes, I would agree 
when we are in session, that would cause additional problems. 
But I do think that--and the reason I have got this top of mind 
is the horrifying shooting in the school that occurred in 
Michigan last week. If you read some of the reports from the 
students and the teachers as to what they did, they had drilled 
as to what to do if there was an active shooter in their school 
and they barricaded themselves into the classrooms, they had 
practiced this, and I think honestly it saved lives. It kind of 
reinforced to me how important actually physically drilling 
really difficult situations in the whole would save lives in 
the end. Thank you very much for all your work. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Capito. 
Senator King, Member of the Intelligence Committee, as well.
    Senator King. Thank you. First, I have to observe how 
profoundly sad it is that we are here even talking about this. 
January 6th was one of the saddest days in our country. That 
our magnificent Capitol is not open to the public, and we had 
an attack on the heart of our democracy. It just cast a pall 
over this whole discussion. Second point, part of--as I recall, 
the 9-11 Commission, one of their conclusions was that there 
was a failure of imagination. We had not--the people had not, 
security people had not thought about what could happen. The 
use of an airplane as a bomb. In this case, that the United 
States Capitol would be attacked.
    I think part of the recommendation is a not a very--not a 
specific one, but there should be red teams. There should be 
people in the Capitol Police who think the unthinkable, who 
think about what could happen in the mind of a malefactor, and 
it might be domestic terrorist, or it might be an international 
terrorist or some combination. I hope that that is something 
that you can recommend. Again, it is not as specific as saying, 
okay, let's fix the K-9 corps or those things. But there should 
be a conscious and deliberate policy of trying to think the 
unthinkable and therefore be ready for it.
    A specific question, and I have not read all your reports 
in detail, but I commend you for the work that you have done. I 
have been surprised there has not been more discussion of 
physical security. It is pretty easy to secure a building these 
days. Why do we have windows that can be broken on the first 
floor of the Capitol? Why don't we have--and why don't we have 
an automated system that when a button is pushed, metal doors 
shut on all the entrances? Is that part of your analysis?
    Mr. Bolton. Not specifically because those type of issues 
really almost fall under the Architect of the Capitol. Any 
physical structure----
    Senator King. Yes, but we are talking--here is another 
silo, Madam Chair. I mean, come on.
    Mr. Bolton. Exactly. But yes, that would be outside of my 
authority, to look at those kind of issues. I know General 
Honore and his task force, did look at and did make several 
recommendations on physical security or the structural 
security. But those really fall in the realm of the Architect, 
and that does not quite fit into my----
    Senator King. I hope, Madam Chair, that that is something 
we could look into, because, you know, if all the doors and 
windows had been sealed, we would not have had a lot of the 
problem that we have. There are ways--there is Lexan you can 
put in the windows that is virtually bulletproof, unbreakable. 
I think that should be part of our analysis. Finally, with 
regard to intelligence. I leaned over to Senator Warner and 
said, is the total intelligence budget of the United States 
Government classified?
    Neither of us are sure, so I am not going to--I am not 
going to cite the number, but we spend tens of billions of 
dollars every year on intelligence. It bothers me that we are 
creating another Intelligence Bureau. I think there should be 
someone in the Capitol Police whose job it is to look out for 
the intelligence, but we do not need to start another 
intelligence examination. We have got the FBI, we have got the 
Department of Homeland Security, we have got enormous 
intelligence assets throughout the Federal Government.
    I would hope that what we can talk about is the receipt of 
intelligence information, but not necessarily the creation of a 
new intelligence division. I mean, that is--the problem in this 
case. For example, apparently there were indications that in 
the FBI system that there was danger that day, but it did not 
get to the right level in the FBI, and it never got over to the 
Capitol Police. To me, it is a coordination issue rather than a 
collection of intelligence issues. Do you see what I mean?
    Mr. Bolton. Yes, sir, I do. This is not something that we 
are proponents that we would be actually going out and 
gathering the intelligence. We would still be users of the 
intelligence. We are just elevating the ability to receive that 
intelligence, and then be able to process it and get it to the 
rank and file, into the Committee, or Committees or Members of 
Congress. We are not advocating that we actually become where 
we are out there actually gathering the intelligence.
    No, we are still users of it, but we have more ability 
where we have folks there. For instant, real quick, when our 
counter surveillance units are out there and they receive 
information just by whether they overhear or see, that we need 
to have a basically an intelligence test for them to report to 
our folks who can immediately then push it out to the rank and 
file, so they get that information of what our folks are 
there--so they are not so much is just what they see and hear--
so there no active where they are searching or----
    Senator King. But I think again, this is pressing beyond 
your jurisdiction, but there should be very vigorous 
discussions with the overall intelligence community, the 
Director of National Intelligence, to be sure the Capitol 
Police are part of their dispersal, their distribution of 
information. Again, the tragedy is to have intelligence, but it 
does not get to the people that need it. That may not be a 
failure of the Capitol Police. It may be a failure of some 
other agency, intelligence agency within the Federal 
Government.
    It is a question of coordination and that we need our 
intelligence gathering agencies, which are very good, to be 
sure that that information is being shared with the appropriate 
entities, one of which is the Capitol Police. The best 
intelligence in the world is no good if the people that need it 
do not have it, so I appreciate your reporting. Thank you very 
much for your really diligent and excellent work on this. Thank 
you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator King. 
Then on with us remotely is Senator Ossoff.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. 
Bolton, for your testimony today. When we spoke in June during 
your prior appearance before this Committee, I asked you a 
simple but important question, which is which individual is 
ultimately responsible for the security of the United States 
Capitol complex? Who is in charge? Who has ultimate 
accountability? That was not a question that you at that 
hearing, nor your colleagues who testified before the Committee 
in February were able to answer with specificity.
    You acknowledged, Mr. Bolton, during that discussion at 
your last appearance that that was a problem, that the lack of 
a single individual who is accountable for and has 
responsibility for the security of the United States Capitol is 
a major management problem and a security risk. That is my 
assessment. Is that your assessment? Let me ask you the 
question again now, now that there has been time to regroup, 
consider reforms, consider recommendations from this Committee, 
who is ultimately responsible for the security of the United 
States Capitol?
    Mr. Bolton. Once again you ask a difficult question. That 
is, if you look at it strictly from an operational, let's say, 
an operational side, that would be the Chief, the Chief of 
Police, but because the Chief also has to coordinate and you 
have the House and the Senate and the Architect of the Capitol, 
the Capitol Police Board, that kind of muddies the water in a 
sense of ultimate responsibility. But if you had to pick the 
ultimate responsibility, it would fall under the Chief of 
Police for security. But that still again poses an issue 
because you still have the Board. It is not--I am not trying to 
say that the Board does not have its roles and 
responsibilities. Certainly they do. That is not the question 
here.
    The question is, who do you look for to have in that 
responsibility for Capitol security? Obviously, if you have an 
issue or you have a question or a member of your staff does, 
they are going to go pick up the phone and probably call one of 
two people, either the Chief or on this side for the Senate 
side, you are going to be calling the Senate Sergeant of Arms. 
Again, that does pose a potential problem that exists.
    Senator Ossoff. Mr. Bolton, we have engaged extensively 
with you this year and with your colleagues because there was 
an egregious security failure which threatened the peaceful 
transfer of power as required by the Constitution between 
Presidential Administrations. I do not need to remind you, but 
I remind all who are tuned in that that failure resulted in the 
sacking of the United States Senate.
    The invasion of the Senate floor, a suspension of 
constitutionally vital processes. Here we are now, nearly a 
year later, and the answer to the question who is in charge, 
which we have identified repeatedly as being a crucial driver 
of both the failure to respond promptly to the contingency on 
January 6th and also the lack of effective management and 
sharing of intelligence in the weeks beforehand, no one is in 
charge. Does that need to change, and how would you change it 
if you could simply impose a different set of policies and a 
different org chart?
    Mr. Bolton. Well, it kind of pushes me outside of my realm 
as Inspector General for the Capitol Police, but I think there 
is certainly--there would be an ability, and this would be 
something that the Committees would have to look long and hard 
at where you have maybe something similar to, let's say, the 
FBI, where you have a Director in charge. That--it would answer 
your question. Who is ultimately in charge of the FBI? It is 
the Director. Who is ultimately in charge of the Secret 
Service? Well the Director of the Secret Service. That is who 
you are going to go to hold accountable for any questions that 
you may have. That would be something that would have to be 
thought long and hard because of the uniqueness of the Capitol 
Police and the various elements, whether it be the House 
Sergeant of Arms, or the Senate Sergeant of Arms, or the 
Architect of the Capitol who make up the Capitol Police Board 
and a lot of different moving parts there. It is not as clear 
cut and as easy as areas over in the executive branch.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Bolton. Well, it is a matter 
that I think this Committee needs to continue to focus on. In 
any management context, in any security context, in any command 
context, as you know, the lack of a single point of authority 
and accountability is a major vulnerability, and we have seen 
the consequences of that, in part, earlier this year. With my 
remaining time begging the Chair's indulgence, just one further 
question for you. I want to express my gratitude and respect 
and appreciation for the men and women of the United States 
Capitol Police.
    I want to express my gratitude and appreciation and 
understanding of the extraordinary burden that they have had to 
bear. The tremendous amount of overtime that United States 
Capitol Police personnel have worked. In 2020, officers worked, 
according to my notes here, over 700,000 hours of mandatory 
overtime. As USCP union representatives have noted, this is 
driven by chronic understaffing. There was, of course, a wave 
of retirements and resignations after the January 6th attack.
    Congress has an unpredictable schedule. At present, none of 
this overtime, again mandatory overtime, 700,000 hours of it in 
2020, counts toward the officer's base pay for retirement 
purposes. My question for you, Mr. Bolton, is what more can 
Congress do to relieve the extraordinary burden on the United 
States Capitol Police requiring so much mandatory overtime, and 
to ensure that their compensation and their retirement benefits 
reflect the true measure of their commitment and sacrifice to 
the security of the Congress? I cannot hear you, Mr. Bolton.
    Mr. Bolton. Can you hear me now, sir?
    Senator Ossoff. Yes, I can.
    Mr. Bolton. Okay. I have been here since 2006 with the 
Capitol Police Inspector General's Office. I have yet to see 
were any Committees, or Congress as a whole, or even the Board 
be an impediment to the Capitol Police in getting the necessary 
resources and funding required to complete their job. Some of 
this is a result of the circumstances beyond even the 
Committee's control or even the Capitol Police's control, 
whether it be the events of January 6th or just natural 
retirements or folks wishing to get out of law enforcement, 
there are many different factors and certainly I do not want to 
leave any kind of--I would not leave any kind of an impression 
that in any time the Committees and, or the Board were an 
impediment to the Capitol Police receiving, like I said, 
funding and, or resources.
    Basically, from my position, it is incumbent upon the 
Capitol Police to present to the Committees and to the Board 
their needs, and to be looking forward, forward looking into 
potential what they will need, whether it be retirements coming 
up, need additional classes, or utilizing different aspects in 
order to bring folks on quicker, whether it may be rehiring of 
those Capitol Police officers who are coming up on a retirement 
as opposed to them going to, let's say, over to the Marshall 
service to conduct their court security officers. We keep them 
here. We just may end up changing into instead a uniform they 
are wearing a blue blazer. Those kind of ideas where you can 
have a force multiplier, and those are the type of things that 
it are really incumbent upon in the Department to be looking to 
those type of things. But certainly, like I said, since I have 
been here, I have never seen any Committees and, or Board that 
had inhibited the Department from getting those resources.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Next up, Senator Cruz. Thank 
you. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
    Senator Cruz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Bolton, welcome. 
Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your service. On 
January 6th, all of us in the entire Nation was horrified at 
the terrorist attack that occurred here in Washington, DC. The 
violent assault on the Capitol was horrific. The men and women 
of the Capitol Police and DC Metro Police and law enforcement 
demonstrated extraordinary bravery and heroism and courage. At 
the same time, what happened on January 6th must never be 
allowed to happen again.
    A riot that succeeds in breaching the Capitol that 
endangers the lives of lawmakers and law enforcement is an 
unacceptable security situation, and you have done a serious 
job examining what caused, what law enforcement failures 
precipitated what occurred that day. When you previously 
testified to this Committee, you stated the primary problems 
were on the front end, the lack of adequate intelligence 
gathering, and on the day of execution, a lack of operational 
planning in place to handle an incident like the January 6th 
attack.
    I would like to follow up on what specific steps Capitol 
Police have taken since then to ensure that never happens 
again. What specific steps has the Capitol Police taken since 
June 2021 to improve its intelligence gathering?
    Mr. Bolton. Thank you, sir. One of the first--one of the 
things they have done is they went out and hired actually was a 
retired Secret Service agent who had extensive training and 
expertise in large event planning, operational planning. They 
went out and hired someone from the outside. You could 
certainly see the difference in September 18th, the latest 
large demonstration that we had here on the Hill. By bringing 
that expertise in there and coordinating, the gathering to have 
an operational plan has greatly enhanced the Department's 
ability to respond and react to potentially large 
demonstrations.
    The Department has increased a number of intelligence 
analysts. They still have a ways to go, I would say, but they 
have increased intelligence analysts. In fact, like I had 
testified earlier that they have additional four or five 
analysts in training as we speak. They have made some 
improvements in providing the intelligence briefings to the 
rank and file officers, to the other beyond the executive team, 
as I would call them, but you know, your inspectors and your 
captains, your line folks that are actually going to have to 
react to a situation.
    Those folks are getting the briefings now, they are getting 
the intelligence materials and assessments in a timely manner 
so that it is real time, with the Department also issuing 
department or Government cell phones. They can get the alerts 
in real time in case there is a problem with the radios. Now 
they at least have a backup to get that information, and that 
is solely relied on a radio that could potentially get 
overwhelmed immediately, but you still have that ability with 
the cell phones.
    Senator Cruz. What additional steps do Capitol Police need 
to take to improve their intelligence gathering capabilities?
    Mr. Bolton. I think they still need to, one, first order of 
business is they need to hire a full-time director. Right now, 
they are in the capacity of an acting director. They need to 
fill that position, fill it quickly, and then look to have that 
individual who has that expertise to look across his folks that 
he has, he or she has, and one, is to elevate to a bureau 
level. I still believe that they need to elevate it from a 
division to a bureau to a standalone, full robust Intelligence 
Bureau. Hire additional analysts and look--and keep up with the 
ways intelligence gathering is done and also to be able to 
disseminate the information that you receive from the field 
quickly and timely to the officers.
    Senator Cruz. Now, the other major source of the problems 
on January 6th that you identified was the failure to implement 
effective operational plans during the attack. What specific 
steps have the Capitol Police taken to develop and design 
workable operational plans to deal with a situation like that 
in the future?
    Mr. Bolton. One of the things we noted when they came up 
with that operational planning, initially for January 6th, it 
was so stovepipe, the term, that there were different elements 
within the Capitol Police who either would either do their own 
plan or did not have one. So you did not have a department-wide 
plan. Now what they have done is they have incorporated whether 
it be CERT, K-9, Hazards Incident Response Teams, DPD, all 
under one umbrella.
    So you have an overall--everybody else knows what everybody 
else is doing, what their plan of action is going to be, 
whether it be the bike units or just the patrol division units. 
So everybody at least understands what the other units--what 
other assets they may have to call upon under one operational 
plan. So it is a department-wide as opposed to the way it was 
in January, which was just basically CDU, and that was it.
    Senator Cruz. So what more do the Capitol Police need to do 
to improve their operational capability in the event of a riot 
or other violent attack?
    Mr. Bolton. I think they need, one, is continue with their 
training. Do not make the training that they have had, they 
have conducted with CDU units. But also they need to train 
together. In other words, whether it be CERT and DPD, they need 
to be trained, doing training exercises together in case of 
emergency so that it becomes a little bit easier or even K-9. 
How is K-9 going to be--in a way assist, set up scenarios where 
K-9 is going to have to assist the Dignitary Protective 
Division. Come up with scenarios, train together. So these 
units actually need to start training together as opposed to 
separate.
    Senator Cruz. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Cruz. I 
know something that you and I have discussed, and you care 
about very much as to all of us, Senator Cruz, is the number of 
threats that we have seen against Members of Congress over the 
past several years. The Capitol Police reported over 4,100 
threats against Members of Congress in just the first three 
months of this year. That is on track to more than double the 
number of threats against Members in all of 2020.
    The Chief has said that he expects that the Department and 
law enforcement partners will have to respond to 9,000 threats 
to Members this year. Has the Capitol Police, Mr. Bolton, taken 
action since June to keep up with these serious threats, and 
are additional resources and personnel needed?
    Mr. Bolton. The Department is doing a good job in keeping 
up with the threats. I think by having them open up a field 
office down in Florida is going to assist once that gets up and 
fully running. But they are taking steps to have hired 
additional analysts. They have, like I said before, they have 
several in school, but there still needs to be additional folks 
hired and brought on board in the intelligence. So we still 
have a ways to go, but we are making improvements. We are 
taking our steps now.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes. I think understandably focused 
on, because of January 6th, the intelligence piece of this. But 
there is more than that as well, of course, and that is the 
followup when there is active threats and the police protection 
and the like that we are very concerned about. I had, let's 
see, oh, one smaller question. Your report raised broader 
concerns about the accuracy of department staffing records. We 
have all talked about the problem with lack of staff, but the 
records. Do you agree that the Department should maintain 
accurate records of anyone on duty and where they are 
stationed?
    Mr. Bolton. Oh, yes. As we noted in our--one of our last 
flash reports with the manpower issue we dealt with, that the 
Department could not provide us records, whether it be recalls 
or the amount of folks they actually had at that time. So the 
concept that it was an all hands is dubious at best in the 
sense. They could not provide us with that kind of 
documentation.
    It is also important to note, when it came time for 
deputizing some outside law enforcement, the Department did not 
have the proper records to document who was deputized and by 
whom, which could present an issue if that individual made a 
Federal arrest and it was a local officer, then the question of 
their legal authority for making that arrest could come in 
question if we cannot prove that they were actually deputized.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Something to followup on. In 
your report on command communications, you recommended that the 
Department implement a policy requiring senior officials to 
rotate through various posts of the Capitol Police. I just am 
recalling when I was the DA I did this a day at a time, but I 
would see, line people at work and basically, on the front 
line, and it gave me a much bigger sense of challenges and the 
like. Could you elaborate on that? Then I have one last 
question, Senator Blunt.
    Mr. Bolton. The Department needs to develop a rotational 
policy. You cannot have certain individuals who will spend 
their entire career in one unit, whether it is 23 years out of 
their 25 years in CERT or even DPD.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. You are talking about senior managers 
rotating to be in charge of different units.
    Mr. Bolton. Whether it be the senior manager--also the rank 
and file officers. Because what you want to do is you want to 
develop your officers or individuals who are specially trained 
in the CERT or K-9 or they have these other skills, you want 
them back in the field with those skills, so you get them 
promoted through the ranks into leadership positions because 
then they also have that background and that knowledge and 
skills.
    Also allow your younger officers to come into those 
specialty skills without having to wait numerous years in order 
to become a CERT officer, or K-9, or DPD agent. That you 
start--what you want is a well-rounded police department. If 
you do not have a rotational policy, you are not going to get 
there.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Just a yes or no question. We 
know there is so much more work to do, but do you believe that 
the Department is better prepared than they were on January 
6th?
    Mr. Bolton. Keeping it simple, yes.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. I want to thank you so much, 
Inspector General. Senator Blunt, you want to say any closing 
remarks?
    Senator Blunt. I have got just one or two questions. I know 
you just responded to the event planning question that Senator 
Cruz asked and talked about bringing somebody in who was more 
prepared for that. What about the event on September--the 
planning for the event on September 18th? You know, there was 
installed temporary fencing announced publicly, all of the 
information that had been shared with the officers, as well as 
partner agencies and had those partner agencies on standby. 
What did we learn from that?
    Mr. Bolton. Our biggest--we learned from it, that is how we 
should be doing business. This is the way--the detail, the 
effort, and not only am I going to say effort, but the impact 
that you have if you are planning correctly, how you have good 
outcomes. Certainly, you know, September 18th was a good 
outcome. They were properly prepared. They were ready for any 
contingency. That is where we need to continue to be each and 
every day, and whether it be a larger event or just a regular 
day to day operations, we need to be prepared for any 
contingency.
    Senator Blunt. Of course, there was not much of a 
contingency to be prepared for there. Do you think that is 
because of the widely discussed preparations or was there an 
intelligence lack of understanding of how many people were 
going to come to that event?
    Mr. Bolton. I really do not have any direct hand knowledge 
as far as reasons why it was so or was not so well attended. 
There could be various reasons why that. But I think what we 
need to take from that as an example of how we, you know, the 
Capitol Police, what we can control and how we should be 
prepared.
    Senator Blunt. The cost of that event, preparing for that 
event and paying for that event was----
    Mr. Bolton. We have not conducted any kind of work on that 
to be able to provide that information----
    Senator Blunt. Well, I think I have read somewhere it was 
right around $1 million. Well, I think there is maybe more to 
learn from that than that we should do that every time we think 
something might happen, and probably that is more on the 
intelligence side. I have actually been supportive of the 
Chief's determination of that, if for no other reason than to 
have a trial run of what happens in terms of how quickly the 
fence can come up and down, and it was quickly up and quickly 
down, and how our partner agencies could be prepared to 
respond.
    Though I am not of the view that there was ever the level 
of threat, but there, you know, it could be that the 
preparations made a big difference in who was going to come. I 
do think the combination of event planning and solid 
intelligence would make a difference on how we plan for those 
events, and I am sure I will have some questions for the Chief 
about that. I think that is all I have. I may have some 
questions for the Record, Chairwoman, but I think I am done for 
this morning.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Alright. Well, thank you very much. I 
want to thank you, we both have thanked you, as all the Members 
of this Committee, regardless of political party, are very, 
very thankful for what you have done, Mr. Bolton. You laid out 
detailed recs. We know there has been progress as a result of 
those recommendations, but we know there is a lot more work to 
be done.
    That is why we are going to be calling the Chief before the 
Committee, following up on the progress. Everyone involved in 
this who has been watching today, we will have a few weeks' 
notice here. There is always time to get more things done and 
we will go over your recommendations as well as ours that came 
out of the report.
    I want to thank you, Mr. Bolton, and we look forward to 
whatever you are providing for us next because it is always 
done in a professional manner and you are not afraid to tell 
the truth, which we need more of every day in these hallways. 
The Record will remain open for one week. With that, Senator 
Blunt, you want to add anything?
    Senator Blunt. No, Chairwoman, I do not think there's much 
to add here. We both expressed our thanks to Inspector General 
Bolton. I do think the recommendations he has made and his 
consistent following up to be sure those are done, and I know 
he has looked also at the recommendations we made in our Joint 
Committee Report, have been significant in moving, helping the 
Department move in the right direction. Like you, I look 
forward to his continued good work in this area.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, and the hearing is 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:26 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                      APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

                              ----------                              

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]  

                                  [all]