U.S. Capitol Police failed to implement emergency security plans before the Jan. 6 riots despite receiving the same intelligence briefings as law enforcement agencies that did prepare adequately, according to a top government official.
Chad Wolf, who resigned last week from his post as acting Homeland Security secretary, told the Washington Examiner Monday that the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Interior, along with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington and Capitol Police, spoke daily in the days leading up to President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally and shared internal information with one another about what was expected.
“Leading up to the sixth now, we’re on daily calls, not only at my level, but then at the staff level as well, with DOJ, with the DOD, with MPD, with others here in the National Capitol complex leading up to the sixth,” said Wolf, adding that the senior-level calls included the White House, attorney general, and defense secretary. “You had a large group of individuals that were going to be on the Ellipse, likely on the Mall, all the way down to the Capitol — that was widely known, and any law enforcement agency needs to make sure that — you’ve got 25 to 35,000 people coming — violence likely going to be.”
“Capitol Police were on those same phone calls and understood exactly what we were telling them and the information,” Wolf said.
The two officials who oversee security at the Capitol, House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving and his Senate counterpart, Michael Stenger, resigned following the insurrection. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund vowed to investigate how the agency handled the breach and resigned Saturday. The Washington Post reported last week that internal intelligence briefings by Capitol Police stated that “Congress itself” could be the target of an attack. Lawmakers from both parties have asked why it took hours for the Defense Department to send in the National Guard as Capitol Police unsuccessfully fought off thousands of rioters.
The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis issued multiple internal reports in the fall and into the winter that alerted other agencies when to expect mass gatherings and protests.
“I&A has been issuing reports everywhere, from, you know, since the election or before the election and certainly after the election, about large crowds gathering to protest the election outcome. And that fact that almost a vast majority of those become violent at some — at some stage,” Wolf said.
In preparation, Wolf enacted the DHS’s emergency plan to secure specific federal buildings in downtown Washington that its Federal Protective Service officers are responsible for safeguarding. That included the headquarters of its Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies and others, but not the Capitol, which Capitol Police has jurisdiction over. DHS brought in an unspecified number of extra federal police from its ranks to guard its facilities that day, as did the Interior Department, Park Police, and defense facilities, which all took preemptive emergency actions to be ready, Wolf said. Despite being on the same briefings with the government’s top intelligence authorities, Capitol Police did not prepare to the level the others had.
“If Capitol Police had a plan, it was not executed,” said Wolf, who criticized the 3-foot-tall pedestrian fence that was set up on Capitol property sidewalks. “There’s no impedance and denial there. You know, that’s not going to help do anything to anyone. So, I think there’s some questionable decisions made on their part that they’re going to have to have to talk about.”
Wolf said he personally never saw any type of intelligence that indicated people planned to storm the Capitol and that if he had, “we certainly would have discussed that.”
“A lot of people see DHS and what we did in Portland,” Wolf said. “We are in charge of a courthouse in Portland. We are not in charge of the Capitol. Capitol Police report directly to Congress. They don’t report to the executive branch.”
“We can provide them information. We can provide them intelligence. We can share, and, of course, if they ask for assets, we give them assets,” said Wolf. “But they did not ask for any assets prior to [Jan. 6], and as the events of the sixth unfolded, we sent in within a matter of hours. I think over 100 Secret Service up to the Capitol once they started requesting it.”
Wolf said investigations into the Capitol Police’s actions were warranted.
