The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the January 6, 2021 Capitol breach, a new report has claimed.
The 105-page document, Planned in Plain Sight, was issued by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The panel’s chairman Gary Peters said in a statement that “Despite the high volume of tips and online traffic about the potential for violence – some of which the FBI and [the DHS’s] Office of Intelligence and Analysis were aware of as early as December 2020 – these agencies failed to sound the alarm and share critical intelligence information that could have helped law enforcement better prepare for the events of January 6th.”
The report accuses the FBI and the DHS of failing “to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners with sufficient urgency and alarm to enable those partners to prepare for the violence that ultimately occurred."
13 September 2022, 08:28 GMT
The document describes the federal law enforcement agencies’ actions as a "failure of imagination" fueled by a "bias toward discounting intelligence that indicated an unprecedented event."
"At a fundamental level, the agencies failed to fulfill their mission and connect the public and nonpublic information they received," the report reads, pointing to internal emails and documents that "demonstrate the breadth and gravity of the threats these agencies received related to January 6th."
According to the report, intelligence analysts and leaders "failed to sound the alarm about Jan. 6th in part because they could not conceive that the US Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters."
"This reflects the intelligence community's struggle to adapt to the new reality that the primary threat to homeland security (as identified by these same agencies) is now domestic terrorism driven largely by antigovernment ... ideologies," the document argues.
The document added that the Capitol-related threats on January 6, 2021 “were not made solely in private conversations that required secretive law enforcement investigative tactics to detect; on the contrary, these threats were made openly, often in publicly available social media posts, and FBI and I&A were aware of them."
In conclusion, the report underscored that “the fact remains that the federal agencies tasked with preventing domestic terrorism and disseminating intelligence — namely FBI and I&A — did not sound the alarm, and much of the violence that followed on January 6th may have been prevented had they done so.”
In separate statements in response to the document, the DHS and the FBI insisted said they have worked hard to improve their systems since the January 6 Capitol riot.
A DHS spokesperson said that they had “strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe." According to the spokesperson, the department has "issued more than 130 intelligence products related to domestic violent extremism to contextualize the evolving threat environment facing our country" since January 2021.
The FBI, in turn, said in a statement that the bureau “worked closely with our law enforcement partners — including the US Capitol Police — in advance of January 6 and on that day to share information in real time” and “set up command posts and had tactical assets ready to deploy” when they were requested.
The House Select Committee’s probe into the January 6, 2021 events ended last year with a criminal referral for Trump and a final report claiming that the 45th president intentionally misled and provoked the mob as part of an effort to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, allegations that the ex-POTUS vehemently rejected.