The Department of Homeland Security sent an email to the military informing the Pentagon that there were “no major incidents of illegal activity at this time,” over half an hour after an angry mob stormed the barricades surrounding the Capitol complex and began to make their way into the buildings, a trove of internal Army emails obtained by Politico suggests.
The DHS email in question was sent at 1:40 pm, after protesters stormed the Capitol’s perimeter defences, and long after Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund had called in officers from the DC Metropolitan Police Department to assist at 12:58 pm.
At 1:09 pm, the police chief asked sergeants at arms inside the Capitol to authorise the deployment of the National Guard, who began arriving at the scene only after 5 pm. Capitol Police ordered for the legislative chambers to be evacuated at 1:26 pm local time.
It wasn’t until after 2 pm that the DHS – any agency formally responsible for protecting the US against a broad range of threats, including domestic unrest – reported that the Capitol had been breached.
“In the last 1 [hour] – Crowds continue to gather at the Capitol. US Capitol is reportedly locked down due to multiple attempts to cross police barriers and police injuries [redacted]; situation continues to develop,” the agency said in a “DHS NOC [National Operations Centre] update as of 14:00 06 Jan” email.
Politico suggests that the email serves to deflect some of the blame from the Army for the sluggish deployment of National Guard forces. However, in addition to Capitol Police, the Pentagon is known to have received reports from over half a dozen sources on the situation at the Capitol during the crucial first few hours after the riots began.
In its own official timeline of the incident, the Pentagon reported receiving open source information of “demonstrator movements to [the] US Capitol” at 1:05 pm, the evacuation order at 1:26 pm, a phone call between then-acting Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy and Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser in which she requested an “unspecified number of additional forces” at 1:34 pm, and Sund’s request for “immediate assistance” at 1:49 pm.
Commenting on the email, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson assured The Hill that “addressing violent extremism is a top priority for [the] DHS,” and said the agency was “working closely with federal, state, local, tribal and non-government partners to improve our ability to detect, evaluate, and mitigate the threats posed by domestic terrorists.”
National Guard troops deployed outside the Capitol in the evening of 6 January and stayed there until late May, long past the 20 January inauguration and a second attempt by Democratic lawmakers to impeach Trump and permanently bar him from politics.
Democratic leaders, much of the media, and even some Republicans blamed Trump for causing the 6 January violence, which left five people dead and led to the handing down of over 650 charges ranging from property damage and theft to unlawful entry and assaulting police. The former president and his staff denied any wrongdoing, pointing to his tweets to supporters to “stay peaceful” and “go home.”
More than eight months since the Capitol unrest took place, a series of questions remains unanswered relating to lax security, footage showing police officers appearing to let protesters past gates onto the Capitol compound, a spate of suicides among Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan Police officers, and other odd occurrences and incidents. This summer, court documents relating to charges against multiple suspects accused of involvement in the riots listed 20 mystery “unindicted co-conspirators” were reported by some media, with Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggesting that the documents may be an indication that the FBI helped to organise, coordinate, and orchestrate the unrest at some level, for reasons which remain unclear.