Ex-security blame other agencies in riot
WASHINGTON — Three former top Capitol security officials deflected responsibility at a Senate hearing Tuesday for security failures that contributed to the Jan. 6 riot, blaming other agencies, each other and at one point even a subordinate for the breakdowns that allowed hundreds of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol.
The officials testified that the FBI and the intelligence community had failed to provide adequate warnings that rioters planned to seize the Capitol and that the Pentagon was too slow after the attack began to authorize guard troops to help overwhelmed police.
“None of the intelligence we
received predicted what actually occurred,” the former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund told senators. He called the riot “the worst attack on law enforcement and our democracy that I have seen” and said he witnessed insurrectionists assaulting officers not only with their fists, but also with pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and flagpoles.
“These criminals came prepared for war,” Sund said.
He and two of the other officials — the former House sergeant-at-arms, Paul D. Irving, and his Senate counterpart, Michael C. Stenger, the top two security officials at the Capitol on the day of the assault — did acknowledge their own mistakes, as well. Sund admitted that his staff had never trained for such a wide-scale intrusion and lacked proper protective equipment.
Senators deemed the lapses a “failure of imagination” to consider that hundreds of rioters would be willing to storm the Capitol.
“There’s no question in my mind that there was a failure to take this threat more seriously, despite widespread social media content and public reporting that indicated violence was extremely likely,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The two sergeants-at-arms have come under scrutiny amid reports that they acted too slowly in calling for the National Guard.
Irving said he rejected Sund’s account that he had turned down guard support because of “optics,” calling the claim “categorically false.”
Irving also disputed Sund’s timeline that indicated the former sergeant-at-arms had waited about a half-hour to contact political leaders about calling for the guard.
Sund said he contacted Irving seeking guard support at 1:09 p.m. Jan. 6. Irving said the call did not come until 1:28.
Robert J. Contee III, the chief of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, laid the blame for the slow deployment of the National Guard on the Defense Department. In written testimony, Sund reported that a top general said in a 2:30 p.m. call on Jan. 6 that he did not like the “visual” of the military guarding the Capitol and that he would recommend the Army secretary deny the request even after the mob had breached the building.
“I was stunned at the response …,” Contee testified Tuesday.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, RW.Va., said she left the hearing deeply concerned.
“Chief Sund said we knew these were activist groups. We knew they could be violent and we knew they were carrying arms,” Capito said. “Why were we not more prepared?”