[Senate Hearing 117-147]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-147
OVERSIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL
POLICE FOLLOWING THE JANUARY 6TH
ATTACK ON THE CAPITOL, PART III
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 5, 2022
__________
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
46-692 WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION
SECOND 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
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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....................................................... 4
Hon. Charles Schumer, a United States Senator from the State of
New York....................................................... 5
J. Thomas Manger, Chief of Police, United States Capitol Police,
Washington, DC................................................. 9
Prepared Statement of:
J. Thomas Manger, Chief of Police, United States Capitol Police,
Washington, DC................................................. 35
Questions Submitted for the Record:
Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the
State of Minnesota to J. Thomas Manger, Chief of Police, United
States Capitol Police, Washington, DC.......................... 43
OVERSIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE FOLLOWING THE JANUARY 6TH
ATTACK ON THE CAPITOL, PART III
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2022
United States Senate
Committee on Rules and Administration
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m., in
Room 301, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Amy Klobuchar,
Chairwoman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Klobuchar, Blunt, Schumer, Warner, Leahy,
King, Merkley, Padilla, Ossoff, Cruz, Capito, and Fischer.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE AMY KLOBUCHAR, CHAIRWOMAN, A
UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Well, good morning everyone. I call
to order this hearing, which is the Rules Committee's third
oversight hearing of the United States Capitol Police, and the
fifth Rules Committee hearing addressing these issues following
the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
I would like to thank my friend, Ranking Member Blunt, and
our colleagues for being here today. Thank you, Senator Leahy,
for being here today. You played a major leadership role in the
Appropriations Committee, in getting the emergency supplemental
funding that we needed after January 6th. I especially want to
thank our witness, Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, who
joined the Department nearly six months ago after a lifetime in
law enforcement and is appearing before our Committee today for
the first time. We are of course grateful to the men and women
of the Capitol Police for the work that they do every single
day.
Tomorrow marks one year since a violent mob staged an
insurrection in an attempt to disrupt the peaceful transition
of power while Congress was gathered to certify the results of
the 2020 Presidential election. That mob desecrated our
Capitol, the temple of our democracy, and delayed the counting
of the electoral votes.
But thanks to the heroism of the people that work with you,
Chief, thanks to our brave law enforcement officers, we were
able to finish our work. I will never forget walking down to
the House chamber from the Senate floor with my friend, Senator
Blunt and Vice President Pence. It was 3:30 a.m. and we walked
through that hallway, broken glass on the sides, spray paint on
the statues, remembering that just that day earlier we had done
this joyful walk for what is every four years the peaceful
transition to power, no matter who wins, Democrat or
Republican.
There we were alone in that hallway, with two young women
holding the mahogany box that had the last remaining electoral
ballots up to the State of Wyoming. While it was a sorrowful
day, and you lost officers and we had so many people injured, I
had this moment of thinking, as we walked down that hallway, in
the end, because of the bravery of your officers, democracy
prevailed.
Many of us remember that insurrection for what it was, an
attack on our democracy. It was also, as we will talk about
today, a brutal and prolonged physical attack for the law
enforcement officers who risked their lives to defend the
Capitol that day. Tragically, five officers who reported for
duty have since passed away, including Capitol Police officer
Brian Sicknick, who died the day after the attack.
Four other officers died in the days and months that
followed Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood, DC
Metropolitan Police officers Jeffrey Smith, Gunther Hashida,
and Kyle DeFreytag. Of course, we all remember Billy Evans, who
died in an incident unrelated to this attack. Many more
suffered physical injuries and even more sustained emotional
trauma from the events of that day.
We owe it to the Capitol Police officers who defend the
Capitol every day to make sure that they have the resources and
support they need to do their jobs. That is why in the
immediate aftermath of the attack, this Committee convened a
series of hearings, Senator Blunt and I on a bipartisan basis
with every single Member of this Committee involved, Democrat
and Republican, joined forces with the Homeland Security
Committee and held these hearings.
Out of that came a bipartisan report that Senator Blunt and
Senator Peters and Portman and I authored with findings and 20
recommendations for agencies across the Federal Government to
be implemented without delay. As we approach this solemn
anniversary, today we will hear, I know because I have read
your testimony, that significant progress has been made to
implement the recommendations that pertain to the Capitol
Police, and I thank you and all your officers for that.
The changes made since January 6th, of course, started at
the top. We said the Capitol Police Board must appoint a new
Police Chief and they selected you in July. We also have two
new Sergeants at Arms. In the Senate, Leader Schumer appointed
General Karen Gibson, who just finished a term as Board Chair
and who has worked to put recommendations in place.
In the House, Speaker Pelosi appointed Gen. William Walker,
who led the DC National Guard on January 6th, and in fact has
testified before this Committee in that role. As I note, on
January 6th, we saw 75 percent of officers on duty forced to
defend the Capitol in their regular uniforms, in plain clothes.
In some cases, they had less protective gear than the
insurrectionists themselves.
That is why we recommended that the Capitol Police have
enough officers with appropriate training and equipment. In
July, as I note, President Biden signed emergency funding
legislation led in the Senate by Chairman Leahy to deliver
resources to do exactly that. We also saw the former Police
Chief that day delayed for over an hour trying to get approval
to call in the National Guard. In an absurd situation, he was
trying to reach the Sergeants at Arms in order to follow the
law, who in fact were trying to defend their own chambers at a
time when shots had been fired and people had been killed.
Senator Blunt and I introduced a bill, along with a number
of other Members of this Committee, including Senators King,
Wicker, Feinstein, Capito, Merkley, Padilla, and Warner, and it
was signed into law last month, to make it easier for you Chief
to call in the National Guard if ever such an emergency
situation would arise again. We will never forget also the
haunting words of an officer desperately calling over the radio
that day in the middle of the insurrection, ``does anyone have
a plan?'' Does anyone have a plan? The answer, sadly, that day
was, no.
We recommended that the Capitol Police produce a
department-wide operational plan for all large scale events at
the Capitol, and that is now standard procedure. ``No'' will
never be the answer again. We also heard how officers on the
front lines were left without critical information. We said the
Department needed to take significant action to improve its
handling of intelligence, and it has worked to ensure
information is shared with the rank and file officers.
While there is so much to do, including, as we know, hiring
multiple additional officers, and I am sure you will be asked
about that today, as well as making sure the Department is
equipped to respond to the dramatic increase in threats against
Members of Congress, which have now exceeded, by your reports
over 9,000 in the last year, more than we have ever seen,
double, triple what we have seen completely related to what we
saw on January 6th, and that, of course, is a challenge for
your Department to respond to.
To close, I will note that, while today we will discuss the
steps that have been taken and the work that lies ahead to
ensure the security of our nation's Capitol, there must also be
more done to safeguard the future of our very democracy.
I continue to support the work of the House Select
Committee to bring the underlying causes of the insurrection to
light to hold people accountable for what happened. It is
crucial as ever, in addition to that, that we pass legislation
to protect the freedom to vote in the Senate. Because at this
moment, we are dealing with a slew of laws that have either
been introduced or passed around the country, major overhauls
to legislation that make it harder for people to vote.
It is as if what was not accomplished with bear spray or
bayonets is now being attempted to be accomplished through laws
that limit voting on the weekend, laws that limit ballot drop
boxes to one in a major city, laws that literally disband
nonpartisan voting boards to be replaced by partisan counting
of the vote. That is what we are seeing across the country
right now. It is not the subject of this hearing, but it is
clearly related to what happened on January 6th.
With that, we look forward to hearing from you, Chief
Manger, about the progress you have made and the work still to
be done. Now I will turn it over to my good friend, Senator Roy
Blunt, and I thank him again on a bipartisan basis for working
through, and this entire Committee, what we needed to do to
make the security recommendations for changes, the funding for
changes, the legal provisions for changes, as well as the
respect and dignity that your officers deserved and deserve
every day. Thank you. Senator Blunt.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE ROY BLUNT, A UNITED STATES
SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. I know that
Senator Schumer is on a tight schedule this morning. Are you
sure? Well, thank you, Senator Klobuchar. I am glad to be here
today, and I am glad we have the chance to thank Chief Manger
for joining us and for the leadership he has already provided
to the Capitol Police.
The January 6th attack on the United States Capitol was a
tragic day for our country. Everyone who took part in that
attack should be prosecuted based on their actions and plans.
That process continues and I support it. As we approach today's
one year anniversary of the attack, it is important we keep the
Capitol Police officers and those from other responding
agencies, including the DC Metropolitan Police, who were here
within minutes and made an incredible difference in the ability
to respond, along with the National Guard, Federal law
enforcement, and others who we really need to keep in the front
of our minds as we have this discussion today with the Chief.
You know, the United States Capitol is our most iconic
symbol of democracy. The whole world was watching to see how we
responded to the attack. These officers were the true heroes of
January 6th. They defended the Capitol and everyone who works
here bravely and without hesitation. Thanks to their efforts,
as Senator Klobuchar just pointed out, we were able to return
to the Senate and House chambers and finish our work. We were
able to show the world that when our system is tested, it will
prevail.
My colleagues and I are profoundly grateful for the Capitol
Police's continued dedication to the mission to protect the
Congress. It is our job to honor their service by doing our
part to ensure that they are never faced with the circumstances
they were faced with that day. The Committee has held a number
of hearings with respect to the events of January 6th.
This is the fifth of those hearings. Throughout those
hearings and in our subsequent actions, Chairwoman Klobuchar
and I are proud of the bipartisan way that we have been able to
move forward to show that we want to ensure the Capitol Police
have the resources necessary to protect both the Congress and
the agency's most valuable asset, the officers themselves.
Senator Klobuchar and I introduced legislation with many of our
colleagues on this Committee, which passed both the House and
Senate by unanimous consent and was signed into law by the
President on December the 22nd.
This legislation, the Capitol Police Emergency Assistance
Act of 2021, provides the Capitol Police Chief with unilateral
authority to request emergency assistance from the National
Guard and other Federal law enforcement agencies in
emergencies. As I previously mentioned, we held a number of
hearings on this subject and released a bipartisan report with
Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in June
2021, which outlines several recommendations based on extensive
interviews with key decisionmakers, firsthand account from law
enforcement personnel, and the review of thousands of
documents.
We have continued to pursue more information on this issue.
We have also worked with our colleagues on the Emergency
Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 to provide the
Department with additional and necessary funding for salaries,
overtime pay, trauma support, riot control equipment for all
officers, and specialized training.
Certainly, Chairman Leahy's leadership on that piece of
legislation, along with Senator Shelby, made a big difference
in quickly responding to what was the immediate need of the
Department after the increased workload and the stress of what
happened a year ago. Beyond the work of Congress, the Capitol
Police have been reviewing operations and looking at necessary
changes within the Department. We twice heard from the
Inspector General, including last month as he concluded his 11-
month investigation into the Department's preparations for and
response to the events of January 6th.
I appreciate today's opportunity to hear from Chief Manger
on the security enhancements the Department has made over the
past year, the work being done to improve officer morale and
retention, as well as the Chief's observations after six months
in command, and his goals and visions for the Department moving
forward. One year after January 6, 2021, we acknowledge that
there have been--there has been considerable progress, but also
acknowledge, and I am sure the Chief does from his comments
today, that much work remains to be done.
We will continue to work together to ensure the Department
addresses its critical needs and is positioned to be better
trained, better equipped, and better prepared in the future. We
owe that to the front line United States Capitol Police
officers who protect Members of Congress, congressional
officers, employees, and visitors to the Capitol every day. We
also, by the way, owe that to their families.
Chief Manger, thank you for being here with us today. I
look forward to hearing from you as you reflect on the changes
the Department has made over the past year and what work
remains to be done. Thank you, Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Now thank you,
Senator Schumer. I know you were busy with something else,
Senator Schumer, but I did mention that your leadership in
making sure we got a Sergeant at Arms in place who is doing a
very good job, so thank you for that and thank you for your
leadership. Senator Schumer.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE CHARLES SCHUMER, A UNITED STATES
SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Senator Schumer. Well, thank you. Let me thank the Chair of
the Rules Committee, my good friend Senator Klobuchar, for the
great work she has done in this regard in making our Capitol
much safer. Let me thank my friend, the Ranking Member, for his
bipartisan cooperation on this important issue. I thank you for
the opportunity to speak right now.
I also want to thank today's witness, United States Capitol
Chief of Police Thomas Manger. Two thousand twenty-one was one
of the hardest years ever for our Capitol Police, but Chief
Manger has done an outstanding job in his first few months,
ushering in necessary reforms to the Department. He will be the
first to say the job is not done. But today the Capitol is a
whole lot safer than it was a year ago, and I commend him for
his leadership. I feel safe walking around the halls of this
hallowed building.
My colleagues, we are here today because one year ago, the
men and women of our Capitol Police stood on the front lines of
the unthinkable in America, a violent assault on the United
States Capitol instigated by former President Trump and carried
out by a mob of radicals looking to halt the peaceful transfer
of power. I remember January 6th as if it were yesterday.
I have said repeatedly over the last year, my experience
that day was sort of like Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two
Cities. ``It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times.'' The best of times because at 4 a.m. that morning, we
had learned, those of us on the Democratic side anyway, that
Senators Warnock and Ossoff had won, and we would come back
into the majority. I could not sleep, got in my car at 7:30,
got here at 12:30, got on the floor of the Senate at 1:00 p.m.
as we began to count the votes.
I was only on the floor of the Senate for about an hour as
the putative majority leader not even having given a speech,
when a police officer in a bulletproof vest and with a
submachine gun strapped across his waist grabbed me firmly by
the collar like this--I will never forget that grip. He said,
Senator, we are in danger. We got to get out of here. He had to
explain to me what the danger was. I did not know, none of us
knew at that time. We walked through a hallway, went through a
door, and this was shown on the video camera that was captured
and they used it at the impeachment trial. I had not seen it
until they did it then.
But they showed me walking briskly with police officer on
either side down the hall where we go through a door. You do
not see us for 20 seconds and then we are running out at full
speed. I was within 30 feet of these nasty insurrectionists.
Had one of them had a gun, had two of them blocked off the
door, Lord knows what would have happened. That was quite a
day, and it was even a tougher day, much tougher for our
Capitol Hill policemen. They were outnumbered. They were
underequipped.
Yet their bravery, their quick thinking, saved many lives
and prevented a violent riot from becoming something even
worse. It allowed us, when the four leaders met and decided we
were going to not let these insurrectionists stop us from going
forward with the counting of the ballots. It allowed us to come
back that night at 8 p.m. and actually finish the counting.
Having the insurrectionists object that day to stop the count
failed. Today we honor those who stepped up that day and
especially those whom we have lost in the aftermath. We
remember them and pray for their families. Now, in the year
since that attack, as has been mentioned, we have gotten a lot
done in the Senate to strengthen our Capitol Police to assure,
from a security standpoint, that the violence of that day never
happens again.
Early last year, I put in place a new Sergeant at Arms,
Lieutenant General Karen Gibson, a wonderfully competent person
with a great deal of experience on both the organizational side
as well as on the intelligence side. We installed the first all
women leadership team in the history of the Senate Sergeant at
Arms. As a member of the Capitol Police Board, Ms. Gibson led a
diligent search and helped us find the new Police Chief who
sits here today. It was so important to me that we had a new
Police Chief who was competent, experienced, and dedicated. I
am proud that we have found such an individual in J. Thomas
Manger.
Last summer, we did a few other things. We passed a
critical supplemental funding led by Senator Leahy and Senator
Shelby, providing tens of millions in overtime pay, funding for
more police officers, hazard pay and retention bonuses for the
Capitol Police. Just last month, we passed legislation
authorizing the Chief to summon the National Guard in future
emergencies without prior authorization. We all know what we
went through that day trying to get the National Guard to come
quickly.
Thanks to his work, the Chief's work, and the new
leadership of the Capitol Police, the United States today is
much safer than it was a year ago, although we are continuing
to work on that vital job of the safety of this Capitol.
But let us be clear, let us be very clear, January 6th was
not a mere--not merely a senseless act of a mob violence that
sprung up spontaneously. It was an attempt to reverse through
violent means the outcome of a free and fair election. Make no
mistake, the root cause of January 6th is still with us today.
It is the big lie pushed by Donald Trump that is undermining
faith in our political system and making our democracy, our
country, less safe. The biggest threat to our Capitol, our
Capitol Police, and our democracy is the insidious, insidious
motives stemming from the big lie propagated by the former
President and many of his Republican allies across the country.
We can and we will continue to make sure the Capitol is
safe from a security standpoint, but without addressing the
root causes of the violence on January 6th, the insurrection
will not be an aberration. It could well become the norm. Just
like the Senate has the power to pass legislation supporting
our Capitol Police force, we have the same power and obligation
to pass legislation to address these root causes that brought
the big lie to life. That is what my Senate Democratic
colleagues and I are focused on and committed to doing here in
the Rules Committee and among our caucus as a whole, and we
must act. We must act.
More than at any point in recent history, threats of
political violence are on the rise. Election administrators--
basically people who are almost like civil servants just trying
to count the elections accurately--are facing harassment, even
death threats, for carrying out their duty. Isn't it a sad day
in the country when the people who in many situations--and
nonpartisan in many situations, bipartisan--but are simply
dedicated to counting the votes fairly are threatened.
Something is very wrong.
By one measure, nearly a third of those who count the votes
say they feel less safe on the job and many, many, many of them
are quitting because they fear for their safety. What has this
country come to when that happens, when the wellspring of our
democracy, the fair, unbiased counting of the votes which has
been part of our hallmark in this country since we have
started, which is the root of democracy, when that is--when
people who do that are threatened with violence, what has come
of our country? We must act. We must act.
My colleagues, the threats that I have mentioned are the
symptoms of an illness festering deep within the bones of our
democracy. Unless we confront the big lie, unless all of us do
our part to fortify and strengthen our democracy, the political
violence of January 6th risks becoming little more than a taste
of dangers to come. All of us have a role to play to protect
our democratic system. Everyone from our Capitol Police to the
voting public, to those of us entrusted to serve in elected
office.
Again, just as the Capitol Police have taken the experience
of January 6th to institute reforms for the future, every
Member of the United States Senate is called on to do the same,
to reckon with the lessons of that terrible day, and to take
action to cure America of the disease of the big lie.
That means passing legislation to protect our democracy
from subversion and safeguard the right to vote, including the
John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to
Vote Act. In the weeks to come, I look forward to working with
all my colleagues to achieve this goal.
For now, let me close again by thanking Chief Manger for
being here, and for leading his Department in making the
changes necessary to prepare for the future. Let me thank
Senator Klobuchar, Senator Blunt, and the Rules Committee for
their role.
I know it is not easy work. I know at times it has been met
with resistance. But I commend you, captain, for keeping your
eye on the big picture and for doing your part to protect our
democracy. It is my hope the Senate can follow suit in the near
future.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Leader Schumer.
Well said. I will now introduce our witness, Mr. Thomas Manger,
the Chief of the United States Capitol Police.
Chief Manger was sworn into his current position on July
21, 2021. He joined the Department following a distinguished 42
year career in law enforcement, most recently serving for 15
years as Chief of Police in Montgomery County, Maryland. During
that time, he was also elected by his peers across the country
to serve as the President of the Major City Chiefs Association.
Earlier in his career, he served as Chief of Police in
Fairfax County, Virginia, where he rose through the ranks after
first joining the force following his graduation from the
University of Maryland. I will now swear in our witness.
Chief Manger, if you could 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. Manger. I do.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. You can be seated. You are
now recognized for five minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF J. THOMAS MANGER, CHIEF OF POLICE, UNITED
STATES CAPITOL POLICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Manger. Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Blunt,
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for providing
me with the opportunity to speak about the significant
improvements that we have made following the events of January
6th, and to speak about the work that remains to be done.
I want to begin by acknowledging the men and women of the
Capitol Police who work so tirelessly to fulfill their mission
of protecting the United States Capitol, the Members of
Congress, and the legislative process every day. It is my honor
to work with these women and men who performed so courageously
a year ago.
While I am proud of our officers, the events of January 6th
did expose critical Departmental failures and deficiencies with
operational planning, intelligence, staffing, training, and
equipment. I am pleased to report that we have addressed a
significant portion of the many recommendations issued to the
Department. In fact, of the more than 100 recommendations
issued by the Inspector General, we have implemented and are
addressing over 90 of them. The staff report issued by your
Committee listed five recommendations directed to the United
States Capitol Police.
I can tell you that the Department has implemented or is in
the process of implementing each one of them. I am prepared to
discuss many of the recommendations today, but understanding
the time limitations, I will focus on the improvements that are
the most impactful and that address the core of the Committee's
findings and conclusions. I have provided under separate cover
for inclusion in the official hearing record a more complete
formal statement that includes a detailed list of all the
Departments post-January 6th improvements.
The Committee concluded that an important contributing
factor to the breach of the Capitol was the lack of a
department-wide operational plan for the joint session. An
important first step we took to address that concern was the
onboarding of a former Secret Service official with extensive
experience in major event and national special security event
planning.
Guided by his expertise, we now take a multi-phased
approach to our planning--to our planning process, with a focus
on information gathering, intelligence, asset determination,
internal coordination, and most importantly, department-wide
dissemination of all intelligence and critical information
before all large and high risk events. This also includes the
creation of the Department's first Critical Incident Response
Plan, which now allows us to more effectively and more quickly
obtain assistance from partner agencies.
In short, a blueprint for operational planning has been
created and put into place for all future significant events.
If January 6th taught us anything, it is that preparation
matters. Immediately after the 6th, the Department focused on
the need to strengthen our frontline officers, the Civil
Disturbance Unit, or CDU. For any demonstration that involves
violence or the potential for violence, the need for a well-
trained and well-equipped CDU is crucial.
Recognizing the tactical importance of our CDU officers, we
have developed a plan to elevate their status and incentivize
them to remain in the unit. The plan entails the creation of
eight hard platoons. These platoons will be permanent units
whose members trained together and are deployed together. We
have done other things as well to strengthen the CDU and make
it more effective.
One such measure is the establishment of the Bicycle
Response Team, which works in coordination with CDU. We can now
deploy 100 trained and certified bike officers, as well as
eight trained and certified officials to complement the CDU
operations. Of course, our first responders cannot do their job
without the proper equipment. Therefore, we have reviewed all
CDU equipment and upgraded it extensively to protect our
officers and enhance our ability for crowd control. Our
improvements have touched every component of the United States
Capitol Police Department, but few changes are as dramatic as
the ones that we have made to the way we gather, analyze,
share, use, and disseminate intelligence.
However, improvements to the Department's lead intelligence
component, the Intelligence and Interagency Coordination
Division, began before January 6th. The Department recognized
that the IICD's decentralized structure had created
informational silos. The continued focus on this has yielded
significant improvements, including a nationwide search for a
permanent intelligence director.
The Department is in the final stages of that process. We
should have somebody on board in the coming weeks. The
development of a United States Capitol Police intelligence
product that is now shared with the intelligence community. The
issuance of a daily intelligence report distributed to all
officers and officials within the Department. A biweekly
classified intelligence briefing. Coordination with
intelligence and law enforcement partners in advance of large
or high profile events.
The realignment of task force officers to enhance
intelligence sharing and dissemination. The authorization for
increased staffing. In fact, we have added eight new
intelligence analysts. We continue to be forward looking in our
efforts to ensure that the Department has a strong and proven
intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination program.
I want to thank the Committee for its ongoing support
during this process, in particular your support for the Capitol
Police Emergency Act. I also acknowledge and appreciate the
support we have received from the Capitol Police Board.
Today, I am confident that the United States Capitol Police
Department has made significant progress addressing the
deficiencies that impacted the Department's response on January
6th. While more work remains to be done, the men and women of
the Capitol Police stand ready to fulfill their mission each
and every day.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Manger was submitted for the
record.]
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Chief. I want to
start by asking, do you believe that the Department would be
better able to defend against the type of threat that we saw a
year ago today than the Department was back then?
Mr. Manger. Yes, absolutely.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. We had a number of
recommendations. I am not going to go through them all, but I
know having reviewed your testimony, our staff has spent
significant time working with your leadership, and that you are
making progress to implement the recommendations that are
pertaining to the police department, is that right?
Mr. Manger. That is correct. Yes.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. As you know, we had the
Inspector General, and Senator Blunt and I had the Inspector
General in about a month ago or so, and he also issued more
than 100 recommendations, which we truly appreciated. He talked
about the progress that he knew of that you had made at the
time.
We have, of course, after that hearing, as is our job,
encouraged you to work with him and to report back on the
progress. Can you tell me where you are in responding to this
and the progress you have made on his recommendations?
Mr. Manger. Yes. At the time when the Inspector General
testified, I think we had about 30 of the 103 recommendations
that were closed, that were implemented, that we had finished.
At the time, we also had another 60 recommendations that were
basically in progress. That we had a detailed plan in place,
but the plan had not been completed.
In some cases, the plan will not be completed until the
Fiscal Year 2023 budget is approved. Some of these, it is going
to take time. But the plans in place, the work is in progress.
We had basically addressed over 90 of the 103 recommendations.
We still continue to work on those.
We have since, I think, closed another five or six of the
recommendations. We continue to work on all of them. In fact,
we have--I have assigned an inspector to work full-time for the
next several months to look at the recommendations that are not
completed and to see what we need to do to complete them.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Manger. We have got to--we have got a plan in place to
address all of them.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. You understand we are very laser
focused here, Senator Blunt and myself and the rest of our
Committee, on that accountability given what happened. We
appreciate that. I am sure we will have the Inspector General
back next year and we will continue this review.
Our report found that 75 percent of the officers, 900 of
1,200 on duty on January 6th, were forced to defend the Capitol
in their regular uniforms. Many officers could not access riot
shields because they were actually locked on a bus.
The emergency funding legislation signed into law in July
included significant new funding to improve Capitol Police
officers' equipment and access to equipment. Do the officers
now have better access to equipment they need to do their jobs?
This is something individual officers have spoken to me about
as well.
Mr. Manger. We have gotten shields for--new shields because
some of the ones that we have had were past their expiration
date, and we deploy those shields every day. In fact, I am sure
that as you walk around the campus, there is times when you
pass through a door, and you notice that there is a stack of
shields behind the door. We have got them deployed around the
campus in case we need them. We have ordered all new equipment
for our Civil Disturbance Unit officers.
That equipment, like many things, is impacted by the supply
chain issues that are going on. We should have that, my hope is
this month, but certainly in the coming weeks we should have
that equipment. That will be deployed. But I think the
important part of your question is that any officer that would
be deployed as a CDU officer now would have all their
equipment.
It might not be new equipment, but they will not come out
there without everything they need. We have got new equipment
on order. We are going to--it is upgraded. It is better. We
will be deploying that as soon as it comes in, and again,
hopefully in the next few weeks. But we will send no officer
out to work CDU without all the equipment that they need.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. You mean Civil Disturbance Unit
there for people watching.
Mr. Manger. Correct.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. For CDU. No more locked busses where
they cannot access it? That was an unbelievable story, just
horrific. They were looking at the equipment and they cannot
get it.
Mr. Manger. That would not happen again.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. We all remember, as I noted in
the opening, the haunting words of the officer, does anyone
have a plan? As you note, in recent months, the Department has
made clear progress with respect to operational planning. In
your testimony, you called this a game changer, the fact that
you have this department-wide incident assessment plan.
Can you briefly expand on what has been done to improve
preparedness for large events? I know you noted you hired
someone who has key experience with that. Anything else you
want to add?
Mr. Manger. We have an incident action plan prepared for
tomorrow, for the anniversary of January 6th. This is a copy.
It is 25 pages long. In it, they are--everybody's
responsibilities are laid out. This information is shared with
everyone so that a captain who is in charge of one division
knows exactly what is going on in the other divisions, as well
as his or her own.
We are sharing information better. We are assigning
responsibilities. People know what their responsibilities are,
and we have backups to each one of the different commanders.
The blueprint that has been created is, has--we have used
it many times since the 6th, and we are very confident that it
gives us everything we need to ensure that the planning that we
do, the sharing of information, and that everybody on the
Department understands what their responsibilities are.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. As I noted, Senator Blunt's and my
legislation, which importantly was co-sponsored by many Members
of this Committee, gave you, and in general the Capitol Police
Chief, authority to request assistance from the National Guard
in an emergency. It was cloudy at best before a very difficult
procedure. How will this improve your ability to respond to
potential future emergencies at the Capitol?
Mr. Manger. Well, clearly it cuts through the red tape and
allows the Capitol Police Chief to make that call directly. I
have spoken with the Department of Defense, and in fact, am
meeting with them later today to make sure that we have the
process down, so that if the time ever came that we needed to
make that call, everyone would know what the expectations are
on both sides of the call.
That is very helpful. But I will just say this, that my
hope is that with the other processes planning that we put into
place, that there is not going to be the need for a panicked
call for--in an emergency. That those things will be planned
ahead of time so that the--we will have better coordination in
advance.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. You know, we all speak to
officers in the Capitol, and my colleagues--I know they do and
thank them every single day. One of the things that we know is
that many of them have had their vacations canceled, they have
been working significant overtime, and right now we are down
officers, and this was something that was happening, all across
the country honestly, but it is something that you are uniquely
challenged to deal with. I know the Department is more than 400
officers short. Could you tell us your plans to change that?
Mr. Manger. I have short term plans and longer term
strategies as well. I think the important long term strategy is
that we intend to hire over 280 police officers in this Fiscal
Year. In a normal year, we would hire less than half of that.
But because we want to get ahead of attrition, attrition that
has increased over the last year, we are going to hire 280
officers this year.
Our intent is to hire 280 police officers for the next
three years. That will get us ahead of attrition, and my hope
is that will get us to where we need to be in terms of
staffing. Shorter term strategies are to look at hiring--to
reemploy annuitants, hiring or allowing for lateral transfers,
lateral hires from other agencies, and then also looking at
contract security officers that can assist at particular
locations where we do not really need armed Capitol Police
officers.
We are hoping that that would free up officers to be held
over less frequently to be able to, you know, get their days
off as they plan, and address some of the staffing issues that
are really impacting the morale of this Department.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. Your long term plan,
though, is to hire actual officers full-time?
Mr. Manger. That is correct.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay, thank you. Last thing, I
mentioned the threats against Congress. Many people in this
very room, Committee Members have experienced them, over 9,000
threats in 2021 alone. That is an astounding number against 500
some people. I understand that you have hired these additional
threat assessment agents. What steps are you taking to protect
Members of Congress and the people that work with them?
Mr. Manger. To better coordinate--what we are trying to do
is have better coordination. We can control and we can do a lot
when Members are on campus. When they go home, when they go
home to their home districts, we are trying to work with the
local officers in those jurisdictions to ensure the safety and
security of staff there, of offices there, and so we can
provide advice and provide recommendations in terms of how to
better secure locations, whether offices or homes.
But we can also work more closely with the local law
enforcement partners to solicit their help. The biggest
challenge I think we have is keeping up with the number of
threats. I mean, we have--we have doubled the number of
officers that investigate these threats, agents that
investigate these threats, and if they continue to go up the
way they have, clearly, we are going to need additional
officers to assign to this responsibility.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Senator
Blunt.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chair. Chief on the issue of
bringing in contract employees, Officer Papathanasiou has
suggested that, the union rep, that this would be a problem for
them. Do you want to talk about how you are going to going to
deal with that? Obviously, in my view, a bigger problem for
them is the overwork and the extended stress of being short so
many officers.
But tell me how you plan to work with the officers who are
concerned about bringing in non-sworn officers to do even parts
of this work?
Mr. Manger. I have been in discussions with the union about
this specific issue. They have mentioned a number of concerns
and our conversations, and our intent is to try and address
those concerns because I think where we--what we agree on is
that these officers need some relief, that we need to allow
these officers to get more time off, to stop being held over on
their shifts, to stop being forced to work overtime when they
would rather be home with their families.
Again, I have talked about the strategies that we have in
place, but this, the contract security would be a temporary
solution until we can get more officers hired. My intent is to
try and address the concerns that the union has with regard to
where these contract security officers are assigned.
Senator Blunt. For that program to really work, what kind
of temporary program would it be? Would you anticipate a multi-
year bid or a 1-year bid with possible extensions? Or what are
you thinking about as you begin to think about how you look for
these contract employees?
Mr. Manger. Look realistically, I think it is going to take
us at least two to three years to get up to our staffing in
terms of hiring new officers. Having that as an option to use
over the next two or three years, I would like to have that
option.
Senator Blunt. Just to be sure we are straight on this,
hiring the officers to get to the officers you currently are
allowed to have is the problem here as opposed to the Congress
saying we are going to give you 100 more officers than you are
currently capped at. That is an unrealistic moment for us to
think about. Your goal is to fill the slots that you already
have been allowed to have and you are 400 short--are you 400
short right now of meeting that number?
Mr. Manger. Yes, actually 457 short.
Senator Blunt. 457?
Mr. Manger. Yes, sir.
Senator Blunt. If I understood your thought also of hiring
280 new officers a year for the next three years, understanding
that other officers will retire and find other opportunities,
and you--that number sounds about right to me to get up to
where you need to be. How long is the training process from the
time you bring an officer into the training environment until
you have them available for service?
Mr. Manger. From the time they are hired to the time you
can actually deploy them by themselves is close to a year.
Senator Blunt. Close to a year. Hiring people, annuitants
who have retired but are willing to come back to work is one of
your thoughts?
Mr. Manger. That is correct, because you would be hiring
back someone who has that experience, and they could go back to
work, day one.
Senator Blunt. When you hire laterally, would you just try
to evaluate the level of training that officer already has and
then determine what additional training is necessary before you
put them into the line?
Mr. Manger. Exactly, yes.
Senator Blunt. Alright. The--I think every police force in
America, certainly every big police force in America, has a lot
of that same challenge of just people leaving either the big
force for a smaller force in some other community, or leaving
with frustration of this whole idea that somehow defunding the
police was ever any real option for the country.
The Inspector General has testified before us that he
thinks that in his view, restructuring toward the United States
Capitol Police was more of a protective agency instead of a law
enforcement agency.
I am not absolutely sure I know what he means by that, but
why don't you give us your sense of what after six months on
the job, what is your vision of what the Capitol Police Force
would look like two years from now and five years from now, and
maybe even longer? If you have thought through the way that
this force should function to best do its job?
Mr. Manger. Well, thank you for asking that question.
First, I think that where I agree with the Inspector General is
the fact that we need to expand and enhance our ability to
investigate threats against Congress, to provide protection to
Members against Congress, to our counter surveillance
activities, to enhance security in the home districts, as I
have mentioned. In that regard, we need to expand our
protection capabilities. But we--make no mistake, we continue
to have to be a police department as well.
The difference between the United States Capitol and the
White House or the CIA or, you know, other facilities is that
we are open to the public. Someone can walk in off the street
now, not now because of COVID, but someone could walk in off
the sidewalk, come through the doors and say, I'd just like to
look around, I want to walk around.
We deal with the public every day. We deal with
demonstrations every day. We have to respond to crimes most
days. We are handling demonstrations. We are making arrests. We
are staffing posts. We do crowd control, visitor control,
employee screening, crime prevention, response to calls for
service, crisis negotiations, all of which are part of being a
police department. While I agree that we need to expand our
protection capabilities, I do not think that we can walk too
far away from our police responsibilities as well because they
will remain.
An answer to your question about where I think we need to
go, one of the ways that I believe that we need to expand our
protection capabilities is to take this, the work that we do in
terms of investigating threats, take our intelligence
responsibilities, and make those investigatory and intelligence
responsibilities and create a new bureau, have a new Assistant
Chief, an additional Assistant Chief. You would have, I think
our dignitary protection and protection responsibilities have
grown--that continues to grow. The need there, the case--the
workload has increased.
Uniformed services will always likely be the largest bureau
that we have. But looking at intelligence and investigations
and creating a new bureau with its own Assistant Chief, I
believe, is the direction that we need to go. This then speaks
directly to the IG's recommendation that we ought to move
toward more of a protection focus because that--this would
allow the Department to do.
Senator Blunt. Thank you. I have more questions later if we
have time for a second round. Thank you, Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Blunt.
Next up virtually is Senator Warner, who is the Chair of the
Intelligence Committee, who also has played a very important
role in our responses since January 6th and before then to
other threats to our Capitol and our democracy. Thank you,
Senator Warner.
Senator Warner. Well, thank you, Chair Klobuchar. First of
all, let me echo what I said at our last hearing. I want to
thank you and Ranking Member Blunt for the way that you have
conducted both the initial investigation and how the Rules
Committee has really stepped up in terms of the assessment of
making sure we protect the Capitol on an ongoing basis. Thank
both of you.
I also want to highlight Chief Manger, at least to see you
remotely. We had the opportunity to work together when I was
Governor and you were Chief in Fairfax, and people still talk
about your operations. We went through, you may recall those
challenging three weeks plus of the sniper incidents that
terrorized, frankly, the whole region. But I know you are the
right person for--at this critical moment and in terms of the
evolution and direction of the Capitol Police.
I want to pick up as Chair Klobuchar just indicated and
Senator Blunts line of questioning about the structure. I know
you are about to name this new Deputy Chief who will be--take
on that role of intelligence. Could you expand that a little
bit? When do you expect to name that individual? Also talk to
us about, you know, the intelligence functions of the Capitol
Police.
Will they be, mostly be feeding intelligence from other
entities rather than doing their own intelligence work? Would
you pursue, if there is indication of some kind of organized
threat, will you pursue that up versus FBI? Talk me through a
little bit more of the role and structure of this intelligence
unit.
Mr. Manger. Yes, sir. The--first we have--you may be aware
that we did have a Civilian Director of Intelligence on January
6th. That person left in the weeks following the 6th. We have
been doing a nationwide search. We are making, going to make a
final selection in the next couple of weeks, and my hope is
that we have someone in place shortly thereafter. We have a
very competent Acting Director in place now.
I think the changes that we have made in our, the way we
gather, share, disseminate intelligence, the big--there has
been a lot of change, but the big thing is how we use
intelligence. One of the problems, of course, on the 6th was
that we had information and it was not acted upon.
Intelligence is the only use that, real intelligence is if
it is actionable, and you can actually--and it can actually
help you formulate your plan in terms of how you are going to
deal with the situation. We have now, which we did not have on
the 6th, we have our own intelligence analysts, we put eight
new ones in place in the last few months, that have the same
training as an FBI analyst, as a Homeland Security analyst.
We are speaking their language. We are sharing information.
We have got people embedded in the FBI, embedded with DHS, and
we have got task force officers on different task forces with
the FBI. We are actually now plugged in to all the places we
need to be plugged into. But we are also doing, while we are
still sharing information and getting information from Homeland
Security and FBI, we are not just totally dependent on them
anymore.
We have our own folks that are also doing research and
doing our own analysis. Basically, we have--we are, you know,
staying connected to our partners in the Federal intelligence
community, but we are not just passive recipients anymore, we
are active in the intelligence community, and we are active in
terms of sharing our information and making sure that all the
information that we get, gets down to our folks, both the
officials and the officers.
Senator Warner. Chief, that means you are--but the
investigatory role is not something that Capitol Police is
going to take on, that will still be reliant upon the FBI or
DHS or other partners, right? You may have the analysts, if
there is an active plot that, the pursuit of those plotters,
though, would be the FBI, not the Capitol Police, is that
correct?
Mr. Manger. For the most part. But I would say this that
when we get information about threats against Congress, that is
a priority for us. We will take those cases and we will run
with them. Occasionally, the FBI helps us with those cases.
Occasionally, Homeland Security helps us with those cases.
But they have to prioritize things too. Our priorities are
always the ones that are threats against Congress. In some
regard, we do, we in fact are taking the lead role on some of
these cases if they have to do with threats against Congress.
Senator Warner. One last question, I know my time has
expired, but one of the things, I think we have gotten better,
but we still have room to grow in terms of the intelligence
community's willingness to share information on a regular
basis.
My hope, and can you speak to this for a moment, do you
have interoperable systems so that you do not have to be
reliant upon an agency, a partner to kind of brief you in
person versus at least having some of your agents, analysts at
a clearance level enough that they can real-time get that
intelligence that may be being looked at from the FBI or
against some other agency that may even have a broader reach?
Mr. Manger. Yes, we do. I mean, we are--we have daily
intelligence briefings with our partners around the region. As
I mentioned, we are plugged in to the FBI. We remain plugged
into Homeland Security. We remain partners with everything that
MPD is doing and Washington, DC's Homeland Security. We are
absolutely connected and are speaking the same language and
sharing information on a daily basis with all those partners.
Senator Warner. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Blunt. Senator Leahy.
Senator Leahy. Thank you, Senator Blunt. I want to thank
you and Chair Klobuchar for the bipartisan way in which you
have held what is really a very important series of hearings
about the violent insurrection of January 6th. You know, I have
enjoyed all these years of working with both of you. Chief, I
am glad to see you here and I have enjoyed the conversations we
have had. I think back, I am beginning my 48th year here in the
Senate, but I look at January 6th of last year, I never
thought, I never thought I would see a day like that, a violent
mob driven by the rhetoric and the lives of a disgraceful
former President of the United States.
They attacked our seat of Government. They threatened not
just the lives of the Senators who are here in this room, but
of congressional staff, of Capitol Hill reporters. Chief
Manger, you know so well the dedicated law enforcement officers
are sworn to protect the Capitol, the people who work here, and
what they face. Because I have served here so long, I have come
to know most of these officers over the years, dedicated,
hardworking people. Both in uniform and in plain clothes. In
fact, one of the officers who died, I first knew him as a
teenager.
You know, this hits home. This is a Capitol family here.
Hundreds of these heroes help to protect the Capitol. Still on
the ground today, they are vigilant in upholding their oath to
protect and serve. I certainly see it as President Pro Tempore
of the Senate, those who protect the Office.
But some are no longer walking here. The officers of the
Capitol Police and the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police, who
gave their lives protecting our lives. They cannot be out of
our thoughts or our prayers. Their sacrifices should not be
papered over by those who want to pretend nothing happened.
Chief, you came out of retirement to take on an immensely
important job at a really unenviable time, and I praise you for
doing that. I know that you sit before us as a representative
of the force you lead, a force that is struggling today with
morale and with memories of that day and with staffing
shortages. You have spoken as recently as this weekend about
the staffing shortages facing the Capitol Police.
Last year, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a
legislative branch bill for Fiscal Year 2022 to provide many
million dollars more. That is pending, and I hope we can
finally move these appropriations bills forward. Senator Blunt
has been very helpful on the Republican side in the
Appropriations Committee and strongly supported the extra $100
million that we put in the last bill.
But if Congress fails to reach an agreement to pass the
Fiscal Year 2022 spending bills, if you are held to last year's
spending levels, how would this lack of increased funding
impact the Capitol Police's ability to protect the Capitol?
Mr. Manger. Senator, it would impact just about everything
that we are trying to do in terms of making and sustaining
improvements, especially in the areas of intelligence, threat
analysis, dignitary protection, and security infrastructure. It
would--we would have to suspend our health and wellness
initiatives that we have started.
But I think the biggest impact would be our inability to
increase our staffing, which is so critical. All we would be
able to do is just replace the people that left. We cannot
survive and continue, we have to increase our staffing, as I
talked about before. That would be the biggest impact.
Senator Leahy. I commend both those Republicans and
Democrats who joined with me last year to get the extra money
for the Capitol Police, and I hope that we can all come
together, both parties, to get appropriations bills through
this year so that you will have the additional funding that we
have put in there. Tell me how you use some of these additional
resources, which will, of course, disappear if we get stuck
with a continued resolution.
Mr. Manger. First, the retention bonus that we were able to
provide officers, I think is going to really have a great
benefit. Over 90 percent of our Department signed an agreement
to stay for another year, minimum for another year. This will
definitely slow down the attrition in the upcoming year, so it
will allow us, hopefully as we hire more.
The retention bonus was one of the ways that we were, I
think, were able to use that to help with our staffing issues.
Hazard pay, anybody that was here on January 6th got hazard
pay. We got the new CDU equipment.
Cell phones for every police officer. One of the big issues
was officers were not getting intelligence information. They
get intelligence briefings every day on their cell phones and
operational information every day on their cell phones. There
are training initiatives that we want to get to.
Replacing and replenishing equipment that was deployed--you
know, deployed on the 6th. We have been able to do that as
well. That money has gone to good use and has really put us in
a much better position than we were in.
Senator Leahy. Well, I thank you, Chief. Chair, I thank you
and in a few minutes I will open the Senator Floor for the day
in my capacity as President Pro Tempore, but then I am also
going to be speaking to a lot of Senators this week in both
parties. Let us get these funding bills through. Certainly, you
are an example of a Department that needs it. Chair, thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Leahy.
Again, we all appreciate you and Senator Shelby's work to make
sure that this Chief and his officers have the resources that
they need. Thank you so much. Next up, someone who has been
incredibly active on this Committee, and we appreciate his
work. Senator Merkley of Oregon. He is here remotely.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank
you, Chief Manger, for your leadership and efforts to implement
the recommendations of the Rules Committee and the Homeland
Security and Government Affairs Committee, as well as
recommendations from the Inspector General's Office to enhance
security of our Capitol complex.
I want to directly thank the men and women of the Capitol
Police Force for their heroism on January 6th and their service
and resiliency in the aftermath of that very dark hour. You
have made a lot of progress in this past year, as this hearing
is highlighting, and there is challenges to come that are also
part of this hearing.
I wanted to just touch on a couple of things. First, I
wanted to be clear about the number of officers who are
currently on the force. You had mentioned the numbers were
short, but how many officers are on the force currently?
Mr. Manger. I am going to have to get back to you with that
number, but here is what I will--I can tell you though. Over
the past year, 153 officers either retired or resigned from the
Department. We have 175--on any given day, we have 175 officers
that are on some type of leave. Many of those are out due to
COVID.
Basically, we are 400, and I may have said 457--it is 447,
Senator, short, of where we need to be. I would think that we
are somewhere between, somewhere around 1,700 that we have,
between 1,600 and 1,700 that we can actually deploy at a post
or assign to a responsibility.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. That really puts it into
context, both the shortage and also your desire to hire, I
believe you proposed hiring an additional 280 officers this
coming year. Do you see, apart from the issue of funding,
assuming there is adequate funding, is that a feasible
objective to achieve?
Mr. Manger. I believe it is. It will be a challenge. There
is no question. I mean hiring that many officers. The real
challenge is to make sure that you hire the right officers.
That we are hiring good quality candidates.
We have a plan in place to get them trained and so that,
because that has been the choke point in the past, is actually
getting them through the training and the national or the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. We have got a plan to
get all the officers through training.
I think some positive news is that so far we have not had
difficulty in getting--in recruiting people. We are getting
plenty of people who are showing interest in wanting to be a
part of our organization. We are still very selective about who
we end up hiring. But I do believe it is realistic and we are
going to do everything we can to, and we have got a plan in
place to get 280 folks on board.
Senator Merkley. Right. No, I am glad to hear that. The
Inspector General and Mr. Bolton made the recommendation that
all the members should obtain and maintain a security
clearance. You mentioned that intelligence is coming through to
the officers on a daily basis.
Although that may not necessarily mean security clearance
rated intelligence, but is that is that part--do you feel like
that that is a recommendation that should be fulfilled, that
each person obtain a security clearance? If so, do we need to
have some sort of way to prioritize those security clearances,
given that the security clearance process is completely
backlogged right now?
Mr. Manger. The answer to the second part of your question
is absolutely yes, we would have to have some method to get
those done. This is really where it comes down. I believe that
it certainly has, that recommendation has merit, but I am
concerned about the fact that I am trying to hire 280 officers.
If that security clearance process slows that--slows the hiring
process down, that is a concern to me.
I do know that there are--we already have many of our
personnel that have security clearances, and they are--
certainly I can look at assignments and say yes, someone in a
particular assignment would need a security clearance.
But I also think that as we hire new officers, not every
single officer in every assignment would actually need a
security clearance. While I think long term, I think we can
look at that, in the short term, I am concerned about it
holding up the hiring process. Do we really--you know, actually
focusing on where we need the officers that actually would
require a security clearance.
Senator Merkley. Well, no, I absolutely agree. It should
not be a requirement to get folks on board. But as you get them
on board and you really need those clearances, please raise to
us the need to be able to clear the path so that those who need
those clearances can get them to fulfill the full range of
their potential contributions to the force. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Manger. Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Merkley
and Chief. Next up, a very constructive Member of this
Committee as well, Senator Capito, thank you for being here.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I
want to thank the Chief on behalf of a grateful recipient of
the service that you and the United States Capitol Police
provide on this campus and in our districts in many times to
look at the security of our own offices in our own homes.
Sometimes I want to express our deep appreciation and
gratitude. Thank you, and I hope you will pass that along. I
read through your statement, and I read a news clip, I guess,
this morning talking about the scars that are remaining from
the Capitol Police, from the January 6th incident, a terrible
incident.
How is the morale? I mean, how many of your officers have
actually asked for additional mental health? Do you feel you
have the capacities for that? I know you have increased that.
Where is your level of concern right now, a year later?
Mr. Manger. One of the priorities we had was to make sure
we had programs in place to deal with not only just the daily
stress of the job, but folks that were actually, who have gone
through traumatic incidents, who experienced that trauma. We
have instituted a robust peer support program.
We have met--we are in the process of hiring, I think we
have already actually hired a couple trauma counselors. We have
got formal programs in place now where, so that officers can
seek that help. I cannot tell you how many have sought that
help because it is confidential. Because when they----
Senator Capito. I was just looking for a general bar. Is
there a great take up of this or--?
Mr. Manger. I think that a fair number of officers have
made them--have availed themselves to these services. I think
as they hear from other officers how much these programs have
helped, it may encourage more officers to seek that help as
well. You know, I am glad you asked about the morale issue. You
know, morale for someone who has been a cop for over 42 years,
morale is always--what I have learned is, it is in the eye of
the beholder.
You are always going to have cops that, you know, will tell
you morale is worse than it has ever been. But you have other
cops that every day they show up, no matter what happens, they
are happy to be there and love their job. It is really, but
what it comes down to is, and I think for us is we need, these
officers need to believe in their hearts that this Department
cares about them, that what happened on January 6th when the
Department let them down in so many ways, that the Department
will take responsibility for fixing those failures and for
making sure that that never happens again.
That is going to take time. For some officers, you know,
they have seen some of the improvements and I think that, you
know, they appreciate it. But for other officers, perhaps a
little more cynical, perhaps they are going to wait till the
first time we are tested again. Are we ready for that test? It
is one of my responsibilities to make sure we restore that
confidence, you know, for the officers in the Department.
Senator Capito. Let me ask you this, a lot of in the
retrospective that we have done in this Committee and other
Committees, there were on the intelligence side questions as to
was social media paid enough attention to, you know, in the run
up to January the 6th. What adjustments have you made in terms
of the coordination between you and other agencies in terms of
the social media monitoring?
Mr. Manger. This is one of the areas where we are taking
more responsibility and we can focus on--and we are not trying
to find, you know, worry about, you know, something that is
going on in a foreign country. What we are worried about and
what we are paying attention to is threats against Congress and
threats against the Capitol. That can be--that is our focus.
While you have other intelligence community folks that are
looking at anything and everything, we have got folks in place
now that are paying attention to those kinds of threats, those
statements that, you know, cause concern. We have got folks
that not only are looking at that, that are watching for that,
but we are also then making sure that if it crosses that line
in terms of being a crime, you know, what someone says in
social media, that we follow up on that with an investigation.
Senator Capito. Is that different? I mean, has that changed
over the last year? That is a new addition----
Mr. Manger. Yes, we have got more people that are doing
that.
Senator Capito. Yes, good.
Mr. Manger. Well, I think before the 6th, I am not sure we
had anybody doing it, but we certainly--but we have got, I
think, eight or nine people in place now that are doing that
with more on the horizon. Our biggest challenge right now is
keeping up with the caseload in terms of the threats against
Congress, the ones that cross that line where we do have to do
a criminal investigation.
Senator Capito. Well, thank you again. I know I did want to
ask about, I know you have been asked about the 400 openings
that you have talked about and the recruitment. You know, I
know that there--probably law enforcement in general, I do not
know what the female ratio is, but I am sure it is quite low.
I noticed that too in the Capitol Police, so I am hoping
that you are making special efforts to diversify the work force
as you have got this opportunity to hire more people. It is a
great career, and I am certainly grateful as I stated. Thank
you so much.
Mr. Manger. Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Capito.
Next up, Senator King, who brings his strong sense of
independence to this Committee, and we appreciate him as well.
Senator King. I am going to give Senator King a minute here.
Senator King. I am sorry. Yes, now I am on.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Good. You are all good.
Senator King. Okay, thank you. Chief, I hope you will
convey our appreciation to the men and women of the Capitol
Police. Whenever I am interacting, my sort of standard comment
is thanks for looking after us and that we really do appreciate
it. In the day to day politics, it is hard sometimes for people
to realize that. Please convey the deep appreciation and thanks
from all of us that we care about what they do, and we
appreciate what they do for us.
A couple of things. You touched on the issue of security
clearances, and that is a problem throughout the Federal
Government, although I must say it is better now than it was
two or three years ago. One of the questions that has plagued
us is reciprocity.
Do you have a situation where somebody has a security
clearance from another Federal agency but then when they come
to apply to you, they have to start all over again? Or do you
have a reciprocity arrangement where if they are cleared for
state or the FBI, they are also cleared for the Capitol Police?
Mr. Manger. We--if it is done by some either Department of
Defense or the FBI, typically if it is done by any Federal
agency, I would think that that would suffice for us.
Senator King. Okay, well that--I would urge you to look
into that because it sounds, it does not make much sense, but
believe it or not, there are plenty of places where that
reciprocity is not honored, and it really delays the process.
As you say, you can have a good recruit, but they get
discouraged by the length of the security clearance process and
go on and find another opportunity. In this economy, we cannot
afford to lose good people.
A couple of other questions and observations. In terms of
your planning, it seems to me that one of the things that we
learned on January 6th is there was a lack of pre-planning, in
other words, a lack of imagination. We have to have people that
are thinking the unthinkable and saying, okay, what happens if?
What do we do?
I hope that is the case. My question is, do you feel that
we have adequate communication and coordination with other
agencies that might be important either from an intelligence
point of view, such as the FBI or the other intelligence
agencies, or with law enforcement, DC Metropolitan Police, the
National Guard. Are there--are we working on preexisting
coordination and communication plans so that we do not have to
make it up on the fly in the case of an emergency?
Mr. Manger. The answer to that question is, yes we are. In
fact, it has become a part of our, the blueprint that we use in
terms of our pre-planning for these events, to reach out to
those partner agencies to ensure that we are sharing
information. That if we plan, we believe that we are going to
need their help, that we plan for that well ahead of time so
that we are able to do. We end up doing tabletop exercises.
We end up getting the commanders over here to show them
exactly where we need their folks deployed and what
responsibilities that we are going to give to them. Absolutely,
that is part of our planning process now.
Senator King. I hope that extends to the intelligence side
as well. You mentioned you are developing some of your own
intelligence capability, but we have, as you know, enormous
intelligence capabilities throughout the Federal Government. My
concern is we still tend to have silos. They are excellent
silos, but they are still silos. I hope that the coordination
includes pre-event intelligence.
Mr. Manger. It does. You know, one of the problems that we
identified shortly after the 6th was the fact that we, even
internally we had intelligence silos within our organization.
Those are gone. With the briefings that we have with our
partners multiple times a week, any silos that existed
previously certainly do not now.
Senator King. Final question that I remember we discussed,
not you and I, but this was discussed in a prior hearing, and
that is work with the Architect of the Capitol in terms of the
physical infrastructure and the ability to seal the building
effectively. Again, we are back to silos.
I hope that there is a close relationship between your
Department and the Architect of the Capitol because your job,
your people's job could be a lot easier if we had Lexan windows
and metal doors that could easily be closed in the case of an
emergency.
Mr. Manger. You know, one of the things that the Architect
has done is to make sure he is hearing everybody's voice. He
has brought experts in to do reviews and provide
recommendations. But he has also ensured that everybody has
been able to lend their voice to their concerns about physical
security. I think that that has all been part of his planning
process.
Senator King. Great. Well, thank you very much, Chief, and
thanks again to all of your people for the great work that they
do on our behalf. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator King.
Next up, Senator Cruz, thank you for being here.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief, welcome.
Mr. Manger. Good morning.
Senator Cruz. Thank you for your service. I want to start
by thanking the heroic service of the men and women who serve
alongside you. We are approaching a solemn anniversary this
week and it is an anniversary of a violent terrorist attack on
the Capitol, where we saw the men and women of law enforcement
demonstrate incredible courage, incredible bravery, risk their
lives to defend the men and women who serve in this Capitol. We
are grateful for that courage. We appreciate the selfless
sacrifice of the men and women who keep us safe.
I will say, my view is that anyone who commits an act of
violence should be prosecuted. Anyone who assaults a law
enforcement officer should go to jail for a very long time. I
think that is a principle that is true regardless of the
politics of the violent criminal, whether they are right wing,
left wing, or they got no wings at all. If you assault a cop,
you ought to go to jail for a long, long time.
I hope we get some agreement that that should be true
regardless of the political context that ostensibly and
purportedly justifies that violence that we will stand with the
men and women in blue. I thank you for your service. I thank
the men and women who serve with you for their service.
Mr. Manger. Thank you.
Senator Cruz. As we reflect on what happened a year ago, it
is also worth asking, as we have, as this Committee has, as
Congress has, as I know you have, what could have been done
differently, what could have prevented the breach of the
Capitol, what could have prevented the riot getting as far as
it did. Let me just start with that question, with the benefit
of hindsight, what could have been done to better secure the
Capitol to stop the riot outside and prevent them from
penetrating as far as they did?
Mr. Manger. I think that clearly documented intelligence
failures, there were leadership failures within the Capitol
Police Department. If--folks, if the intelligence had been
acted on the way it should have been and we would have had
enough people here, I think it would have been a different
story.
One of the things that we have, one of the changes that we
put into place is that with a few phone calls, I can get double
or triple the number of police officers we have--trained,
equipped police officers--here to assist us in our
responsibilities to protect the Capitol and protect the Members
of Congress.
You know, as--and we will be tested again, Senator. I mean,
and I do not know who it is going to be or when it is going to
be, but we will likely be tested again. But what will be
different is that we will be paying much more attention to the
information that we gather ahead of time. We will be putting
together a better plan. We will be getting the help that we
need, preplanned, here on campus before we need it, not making
panicked calls later on.
I say that and not in any way criticize the folks that were
here on the 6th. They had a very difficult challenge, and I am
the--I frankly have not been looking behind me, I am looking
forward about what we need to do to make the changes. But
clearly, when you look at the recommendations, when you look at
what happened, we did not have the people, we did not act on
the intelligence, and we just were not prepared the way we
should have been.
That is going to change. That has changed, and the next
time that we are tested, we will not be making those same
mistakes.
Senator Cruz. Well, and let me say, one of the things we
have seen the last two years is a dramatic increase in threats
directed at lawmakers, and those threats are bipartisan,
directed at Republicans and Democrats. The Chairwoman and I
have discussed this at length. Let me say, the Capitol Police
does a tremendous job working to deal with those threats and
working to keep us safe.
We are grateful for that. The two areas you identified for
improvement were intelligence gathering and manpower. On the
manpower side, you talked about the ability to surge additional
resources. What are the sources of those additional officers to
surge on the manpower side?
Then let me ask second, on the intelligence side, what more
do we need to do on the front end to anticipate the specific
threats that we need to be ready for?
Mr. Manger. In terms of surging staffing here, we have got
Federal partners, we have got state and local partners, we have
got the National Guard, all of whom we have coordinated with
since the 6th, all of whom we have sat down and said, okay,
when we need help, here is how we are going to do it.
One of the things, and I thank both the Senate and the
House for passing the supplemental. We have included and there
was funding so that if we asked for state and local help, and
at one point for one event we had an additional 400-500 police
officers, trained Civil Disturbance Unit Police officers here
to enhance our capability. We were able to offset the expenses
from those partners so that when we make the request, we are
going to get a yes. Metropolitan Police Department and Chief
Contee could not be--we could not find a better partner than
the MPD.
I speak with the Chief fairly frequently. Anything that we
need is again, the answer is yes from MPD. But we know we need
to talk ahead of time to plan for these things. Which takes me
to your second question about the intelligence and what we are
doing on the front end. We did not--prior to the 6th, we were
not sharing information the way we should be, and we were not
disseminating it to our own people the way we should be. We--
the only--intelligence is only useful if you act on it.
When you get intelligence, you need to say, okay, how does
this impact our operational plan? What are we going to do--we
have heard this. We have this intelligence. We believe it is
credible. What are we going to do about it? Those are changes
that we have made and put into place so that we are sharing it,
we are acting on it, we are using it, and we are disseminating
it to our own officers.
I, you know, we are going to get tested again and, but we
have put things into place to make sure that we will not be
impacted by intelligence failures or failure to plan ahead,
failure to imagine, or failure to have enough people here.
Those are things that we put into place that I am confident
that when we are tested again, we are going to be fine.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Chief.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Cruz.
Thanks for the focus on members' security, and we will continue
to work together on that. Next up is Senator Padilla, such a
leader on voting rights on this Committee with his past work as
Secretary of State for the State of California. Thank you,
Senator Padilla, for being on today.
Senator Padilla. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Before I get
to a couple of questions that I want to prioritize, I want to
take the opportunity to comment on something that Senator Cruz
just raised. I mean, I appreciate the fact that he recognized
last January 6th, I believe he called it riot and referenced
rioters. I believe it was an insurrection personally. We can
discuss and debate what the proper terminology is, but even if
it was just a riot, we saw the results of that incident.
We saw violent attempts to disrupt Congress, to disrupt the
process of certifying the election results, and in its part of
the greater peaceful transfer of power. We saw violence. It was
deadly violence. We saw attacks and assaults far beyond insults
and disrespect toward Capitol Police officers.
If we are in agreement on a bipartisan basis to recognize
January 6th for what it was, then we should also agree on a
bipartisan basis to ask some questions. Was it organic and
spontaneous or was it organized and premeditated? If it was
organized and premeditated, you are going to have a hard time
convincing me otherwise that we have to ask the question, who
was behind it? Who organized, who incited this? We had the
opportunity to set up an independent, bipartisan commission to
answer those very questions, but unfortunately, our Republican
colleagues would not vote to do so.
Now I and so many people across the country eagerly await
the results of the Committee that was established in the House,
a bipartisan committee which seeks to answer some of these
questions. But let me now transition back to the topic at hand,
the issues at hand and some of the questions that I was hoping
to raise. First, in the context of this information, Chief, I
thank you for your service at this time of this agency and for
your more than 40 years of work at law enforcement.
The topic of disinformation has been raised by some of my
colleagues already in this Committee. I will not repeat them.
But I do want to highlight one specific question, the role of
disinformation in the lead up to January 6th is one thing, but
what has been done since last year's insurrection is another.
I am referring to the former President of the United States
and his political allies seeking to whitewash in fact what
happened. Some floated publicly, claiming that those who
attacked the Capitol were just, ``peaceful protesters.''
Perhaps nobody knows just how false those claims are than the
women and men of United States Capitol Police who were beaten
and bloodied defending the people inside this building and,
yes, defending democracy itself.
Chief, what do you say to those who continue to perpetuate
the lie that last January 6th just was not that--excuse me, it
just was not that bad? What do you say?
Mr. Manger. We are not concerned about political ideology.
We are concerned about behavior, we are concerned about people
that break the law. People who break the law--there are
extremists on both sides of the spectrum that are breaking the
law, and we are here to protect the Capitol, protect the
Members of Congress. That is our mission.
I would say to anybody that wants to come to this Capitol
and peacefully demonstrate, we will protect your right to do
so, but anybody that comes here and decides they want to break
the law, that we are going to do everything in our power to
stop you and to ensure that the Capitol and the Members of
Congress remain safe.
Senator Padilla. Chief, I did not think I needed a follow
up question to that, but apparently I do. Do you think what we
saw in the Capitol last January 6th was just another day, just
people exercising their constitutional rights, or was it
unacceptable, fatal violence?
Mr. Manger. As I watched the events of January 6th, I was
at the time retired, I was at the time watching it on TV, and I
was horrified by what I saw. I saw police officers being
assaulted. That is the reason that I am sitting here today is
because I wanted to do what I could to help this police
department and to better protect our Nation and the Capitol and
what this Capitol represents.
Senator Padilla. Thank you for that. Clearly we have some
work to do. One other quick question, Madam Chair. I know my
time is up. I want to recognize that Senator Capito raised the
concern of the questions about the mental health of the women
and men of the United States Capitol Police. I share in that
and standby ready to support any additional resources or
support that we can offer. I do have one question about
physical health.
We know that businesses, organizations, entities both
public and private across the country have been impacted by the
COVID-19 pandemic, whether it is individuals who are not able,
willing to work because they have not been vaccinated or people
who are not able to work because they have contracted COVID-19.
Chief, can you talk about vaccination levels within the
Department and what steps we are doing to encourage vaccination
rates for those who are not vaccinated yet?
Mr. Manger. We are, I think we are over 70 percent of our
employees are vaccinated. But like every agency that we just
had a call of law enforcement agencies around the region
yesterday, we are being hit hard by folks of both vaccinated
and not vaccinated with this latest variant that are testing
positive.
We have got dozens of officers that are out in isolation,
and we have got dozens of officers that are, have been out long
term with the impacts of COVID. It has affected our staffing
levels. Again, with everything else that, all the other
staffing challenges that we have, COVID is wreaking havoc as
well.
Senator Padilla. Well, thank you for your responses, Chief,
and thank you for your service. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you, Senator
Padilla. Senator Blunt, you have a few more questions. Thank
you.
Senator Blunt. I do have, Chair. Thank you for the time to
ask a few more questions. Chief, there have been some concerns
expressed about individuals and senior leadership jobs in the
Department. You have been there six months. What are you doing
to address those concerns among the officers themselves?
Mr. Manger. Right after the 6th, the Chief of Police
resigned. Both Sergeant at Arms in the day or two after the 6th
were gone. In the weeks after that, there were--our Director of
Intelligence left. Our--we had an Assistant Chief retire, we
had two assistant--two Deputy Chiefs retire. We had our
Director of Security Services, the two--two high ranking
civilian directors in our agency, intelligence and security
services, left.
When I got here, if you look at the top level of our
organization and the top 11 people sworn and civilian in our
organization, six were gone. I had less than half of the
leadership positions with the folks that were here on the 6th.
As soon as I got here, the first thing I--my first order of
business was to assess my leadership team and assess and look
at who was here just biding their time, waiting to see what
happens, and who was here working as hard as I was going to
work in improving, making the improvements this agency
required.
For the past six months, I have made that assessment. I
made that assessment, you know, in light of discussions with
the Sergeant at Arms, in light of discussions with past Police
Chiefs, past Capitol Police Chiefs, I have made it in light of
the no confidence votes that the union held.
I took--I considered all that information. But what--the
bottom line when I assess someone's performance, I look at what
have they done since the 6th. What have they done to help this
agency, to improve this agency.
I have made those assessments, and I know that part of my--
I know the part of my leadership team that is working as hard
as I am to make the changes that need to be made. I know that
there are still a lot of people that have differing opinions. I
still understand that the union stands by its vote of no
confidence.
But the fact of the matter is, Senator, that a vote of no
confidence is not an objective evaluation of someone's
performance. It has meaning, a vote of no confidence has
meaning. But I am trying to evaluate people's performance
objectively in terms of what they are doing to help this
organization.
As I move forward, I do think we need, I need to add an
Assistant Chief to my leadership team for all reasons I talked
about, that move toward being a more protective agency. As I
make my decisions about where we are going to be in six weeks,
six months, six years, I am now at a point where I am ready to
talk more publicly about what we need, come to the Oversight
Committees, go to the Capitol Police Board about changes that
need to be, organizational changes that need to be made.
Because I cannot make an organizational change without approval
from Capitol Police Board and this Oversight Committee.
The time is now to have those discussions, to talk about
the bigger plan, and understanding that not everybody is going
to agree with my assessment, not everybody is going to agree
with the direction that I may want to go, but I am the one
responsible for this Department, and I am the one responsible
for the safety and security of this campus.
The decisions I make are not--I have no predisposed notion
about anybody. I made these decisions based on the last six
months of my assessment of my leadership team and my assessment
of the Department and where we need to go to be in a better
position to fulfill our mission.
Senator Blunt. Well, thanks, Chief. I think that is--I am
very supportive of one, understanding all the vacancies you
already had when you came to the job, and two, taking that time
to evaluate not only who you had, but what you needed. I think
I speak for the Chairwoman of the Committee and certainly I can
for myself, and we are looking forward to working with you as
you come up with any reorganizational structure, that as you
pointed out, this Committee would have to approve.
But after decades of work as a Chief of Police and after,
now you are beginning to get in the second six months of your
work here, beginning to make some of those permanent decisions,
I think is important and we look forward to working with you on
those. I think my last question would be, of the unresolved
recommendations from the IG or from the five big
recommendations we made in our June report, which do you think
are the most important to try to resolve as quickly as you can?
Mr. Manger. The intelligence recommendations, the
operational planning recommendations, and making sure that we
have got the CDU situation squared away. Those were the top
three, I think, priorities.
Senator Blunt. Good. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chair.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. I just have one
or two more questions here, and then we will let you go back to
your work, Chief. I want to thank you for being here today.
The first question I have is a pretty straightforward one
about training. It is one of the things that we identified as
an issue, the Inspector General in his reports identified the
need for consistent training, and I have had individual
officers actually in the last year talk to me about that, what
kind of training they had had leading into this.
Some of that includes officers not receiving Civil
Disturbance Unit, as we say CDU training, since they left the
academy. Also, the Inspector General raised concerns about
maintaining up to date certifications for specialized roles
such as intelligence analysts, K-9 officers, and others. How
has the Department improved access to and prioritization of
training, and what are your top priorities for expanding
training?
Mr. Manger. With the specific issues that were brought up
in the recommendation from this Committee's report, those have
been squared away. We have made sure that we have got those
certifications in place, and we have got a process in place to
make sure that that is sustained.
I could tell you that we have got--I have so many training
priorities, I mean, you know, during my six months here and the
assessment I have done, I think ``we need to start doing more
of this, more training here, more training there''.
The biggest challenge I have is this staffing problem. You
cannot do training if you are so short of staffing that you
cannot pull people off a post to send them to training.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Because you not only have the
trainers, of course, but then you are pulling people off the
front lines to have them trained, and so it is kind of a
chicken and egg. You need to get these people in place.
Mr. Manger. Exactly. But here is what we have done. We have
got a--we just are getting four, and they are called VirTra
machines. It is basically a virtual training program. We are
going to put a VirTra machine in headquarters. We are going to
put one up in the Capitol. We are going to put--we are going to
deploy a couple other of these machines.
We are going to be able to--we will not have to pull an
officer off a post all day. We can pull them off for a half
hour and say, go through this training program, whether it is
de-escalation, whether it is use of force, whether it is--these
virtual training implements are great for a number of areas.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Sometimes it is better to do training
for a shorter period of time anyway instead of sitting there
all day.
Mr. Manger. Right, and you can do it without impacting
staffing. We have got--one of the things I also want to do is
focus more on leadership training. I do not think that this
Department, like many Departments, does enough leadership
training, and I am talking about leadership for first line
supervisors as well as for commanders.
I want to make sure that we develop the leaders in this
organization so that whenever I do leave, that the Sergeant at
Arms, the Oversight Committees are going--can look at it and
say, you know, what, we have got three or four or five people
within that organization that we believe could be the next
Chief. That is my goal.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. Can you talk briefly,
about how on January 6th, and I noted this at the beginning, it
was not only the Capitol Police. There were other law
enforcement agencies that stepped in. Everyone from the United
States Marshals Service to the New Jersey State Police, not to
mention the National Guard, of course, outside of law
enforcement in Maryland and Virginia and DC.
Can you talk about the importance of maintaining strong
relationships with law enforcement partners in the Capitol
region? I think that is one of the reasons there was so much
interest in you for this job because you have those
relationships, and what steps have been taken to improve the
Department's coordination and mutual aid agreements?
As a former prosecutor, I had 45 police departments in my
county and I was very well aware of how some of the smaller
suburban areas and towns needed those mutual aid agreements and
needed to pair up with other Departments. But this is, of
course, a major city to major city. Could you talk about the
mutual aid agreements?
Mr. Manger. Yes. If I can hearken back. So often, you know,
we have folks with so much seniority here. Let me hearken back
to my younger days when I was a brand new Police Chief in
Fairfax County and Chuck Ramsey was the brand new Police Chief
in Washington, DC. It was Chuck Ramsey that said, hey, we have
a big event coming, can you, Chief Manger, send us 150 trained
CDU officers to assist with this event.
He called in regional partners around the Capital Beltway
and was able to get again 800-900 police officers here to
supplement what he needed. I am a big believer in using the
resources that we have in this region and have done it my whole
career. When I got here, I made those same phone calls to
people that I have known for a long time who were leading the
agencies around the Beltway, and I said, can you help? The
answer was immediately yes.
We have put in a formalized process to request that
assistance, and you know, and ensure that we get the help that
we need. I have got the same relationship with MPD, the same
relationship with our Federal law enforcement partners, Park
Police, and the United States Secret Service, and we have that
relationship with the National Guard.
All these things have been formalized, put in place, and we
are talking about it ahead of time, so there is not going to be
a panicked call, you know, on the day of, it is going to be a
more orderly planning process for the events that were--that we
think are going to be challenging to us.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay, thank you. Just one last
question, the FBI and the Department of Justice continue to
investigate the events of January 6th. This is outside of the
work, of course, being done in the House, the thorough work,
and they have brought over 700 criminal cases related to the
attack. We just heard from Senator Cruz in his support for
these prosecutions, as well as many others on this Committee.
Is the Capitol Police continuing to work in coordination
with the Department of Justice in its investigations and
prosecutions? Do you agree that it is particularly important to
hold accountable those who attack Capitol Police officers?
Mr. Manger. I am a firm believer that the biggest deterrent
for criminal activity is if people think they are going to face
consequences for committing a crime. I think that anytime you
have police officers assaulted and anytime you have a situation
like we dealt with on January 6th, people do--you know, if they
committed a crime, they should be prosecuted. We have been
working closely with the Department of Justice.
We are working--and this ties into, we have not talked
about it, but you know, as you know, we have, we are starting
to have field offices around the country and our relationships
with the local prosecutors there, and the fact that we will
have attorneys assigned to those field offices, all that is
enhancing our reputation with--for prosecution of threats,
cases, and other cases involving our mission here to protect
the Capitol.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. Well, thank you very much, Chief. You
know, we heard today about the progress you have made and most
importantly, the progress that your officers and what they have
done here. We wish, I know Senator Blunt and I wish we could
have them all in front of us to thank them, because we know in
the end, while you are the Chief, it is individual officers
that are the ones on the front line making decisions every
single day about how to handle situations.
I think that on January 6th last year, they did not have
the support that they needed, whether it is the equipment,
whether it was a plan, whether it was a direction on that day,
and yet they still valiantly did their job. I just want to
reiterate, while you are a witness today, we see all of them
before us as well, and we mostly, my memories of them with the
cuts on their faces, the looks on their faces, trying to get
Senators to safe locations, trying to assure people that they
needed to stay where they are and it was going to be okay, and
doing the work of even clearing that chamber with the help of
others and other frontline staff people so we could go back and
finish our job that night.
This was not just about, you know, bread and butter doing
your job, this was actually about saving our Republic, and ``it
is, what to me, makes'' the Capitol Police such an important
agency and such a unique and special agency for our country. I
want to thank you. We are going to continue asking you
questions as this goes along. As you know, I will have you back
again next year.
We will continue to work with the Inspector General. I know
that is not always easy, but it is really important that we
continue to have that oversight, and we encourage you to
continue your work in recruiting and retaining officers. That
appears to be the number one challenge ahead for you and many
other Chiefs across the country, as well as finding new and
different ways of using your resources and those around the
country to protect Members, which we have seen, of course, to
be under more and more threats.
We thank you for that as well. With that, Senator Blunt,
you want to just say a few words here at the end.
Senator Blunt. Well, thank you, Chair, and thank you for
having this hearing. I think it is a good opportunity for us to
talk to the Chief and to think about the great, extraordinary
bravery and service that the Capitol Police force provided not
only on January the 6th, but frankly, every single day.
Again, I want to express my great appreciation to their
families as well. When they leave to come to work at the
Capitol, their family has no idea what they are going to face
that day, and that is the case for law enforcement everywhere,
but the tempo here is such now that I think it has been a
particularly challenging time for families as well.
But Chief, as I said just a moment ago, we look forward to
continuing to work with you and to talk about your plans for
reorganization and what we can do to move forward, and
certainly to do everything we can to encourage you as you try
to recruit members to get this force back to the level that it
needs to be for the safety of everybody involved, and
particularly for the safety of the officers in the job they do.
Thank you, Chair and thank you, Chief.
Mr. Manger. Thank you.
Chairwoman Klobuchar. The record will remain open for one
week. Thank you again, Chief. We are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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