Clearly frustrated House lawmakers grilled acting Capitol law enforcement heads over security failures on Jan. 6 and how they are being addressed.
“What I was hoping to hear are important changes, and lessons learned, and where we go from here. What I’m hearing is the same old stuff and pointing fingers, and‚ it looks like — protecting jobs,” Texas Republican Rep. Kay Granger said Thursday. “This is very, very disappointing at the least and frightening at the most.”
Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman and acting House Sergeant at Arms Timothy Blodgett testified in a House Appropriations Committee legislative subcommittee hearing about the security failures on Jan. 6 when supporters of President Donald Trump breached the U.S. Capitol building.
It was another major congressional hearing seeking information from the normally tight-lipped law enforcement officials about Jan. 6, following a Tuesday Senate hearing with former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, both of whom resigned soon after the 6th.
FINGER-POINTING DOMINATES HEARING ON CAPITOL RIOT
Pittman, like other law enforcement officials, testified that intelligence ahead of Jan. 6 anticipated violence between groups outside the Capitol but did not point to a massive insurrection.
“There is evidence some of those who stormed the Capitol were organized, but there is also evidence a large number were everyday Americans who took on a mob mentality because they were angry and desperate,” Pittman said. “It is the conduct of this latter group the department was not prepared for.”
She estimated that more than 10,000 people were on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 and estimated that around 800 people entered the Capitol building.
“It was a failure in leadership. It seems like the only thing they got right was the intelligence, but they didn’t use it properly,” subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, told reporters after the hearing.
Washington Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler pressed Pittman and Blodgett on the Capitol Police department’s efforts to correct communication breakdowns among officers.
“You guys are in charge, though, of the security on the House floor, or are you just there to make sure that we take our coats off when on camera?” she asked Blodgett.
“Part of the reason there was chaos was because each and every one of these officers, boots on the ground, commander or not, had to make a decision with no information. Like, there was no incoming help as far as they knew. They had no idea what you guys were doing,” Herrera Beutler said to Pittman. “I’m frustrated that I’m not hearing, ‘This is how we’re fixing that right now, this is what we’re doing.’ And that’s what I expect.”
She noted that the Capitol Police union issued a vote of no confidence for top officers, including Pittman.
Lawmakers also brought up the issue of a Jan. 5 FBI memo that warned of “war” at the Capitol, which Sund on Tuesday said was received by Capitol Police but never made its way up the chain to his desk. Pittman said that she has put “corrective internal controls” to ensure the information gets to where it needs to go in a timely manner, but she also said that even if leaders had received the memo, they would not have done anything differently because the intelligence was not “actionable.” She pointed a finger back at the FBI, saying that there are other mechanisms in place for the FBI to deliver critical intelligence to top brass.
Ryan found that explanation troubling.
“When we’re sitting here having this conversation, the average person is saying, ‘You’re getting all this information of threats. You know these groups are going to be down there.’ What is your definition of a credible threat?” Ryan said.
Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, zeroed in on the problems with the Capitol Police Board: “It’s like your appendix. It’s just there, it doesn’t have any real function.”
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The board, made up of both sergeants at arms and the architect of the Capitol, was in theory needed to authorize a National Guard response, and Thursday’s hearing went into detail about how that system failed. Pittman also addressed a point of conflict from Tuesday’s Senate hearing about the time that Sund called Irving to request an emergency declaration: Sund’s phone records say that he called Irving at 12:58 p.m., though Sund said he had first called at 1:09 p.m., and Irving said he had no record of that call.
Pittman declined to commit to holding any press conferences. The Capitol Police has not held a single press conference since Jan. 6.
