VIDEO | Senate report details broad failures around Jan. 6 attack

In this Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police officers hold off rioters loyal to President Donald Trump at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
In this Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police officers hold off rioters loyal to President Donald Trump at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

WASHINGTON - A Senate investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol found a broad intelligence breakdown across multiple agencies, along with widespread law enforcement and military failures that led to the violent attack.

There were clear warnings and tips that supporters of former President Donald Trump, including right-wing extremist groups, were planning to "storm the Capitol" with weapons and possibly infiltrate the tunnel system underneath the building. But that intelligence never made it up to top leadership.

The result was chaos. A Senate report released Tuesday details how officers on the front lines suffered chemical burns, brain injuries and broken bones, among other injuries, after fighting the attackers, who quickly overwhelmed them and broke into the building. Officers told the Senate investigators they were left with no leadership or direction when command systems broke down.

The Senate report is the first - and could be the last - bipartisan review of how hundreds of Trump supporters were able to push violently past security lines and break into the Capitol that day, interrupting the certification of Joe Biden's presidential election victory. The failures detailed in the report highlighted how, almost 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies are still beset by a fundamental issue: a failure of imagination.

The report recommends immediate changes to give the Capitol Police chief more authority, to provide better planning and equipment for law enforcement and to streamline intelligence gathering among federal agencies.

But as a bipartisan effort, the report does not delve into the root causes of the attack, including Trump's role as he called for his supporters to "fight like hell" to overturn his election defeat that day. It does not call the attack an insurrection, even though it was. And it comes two weeks after Republicans blocked a bipartisan, independent commission that would investigate the insurrection more broadly.

"This report is important in the fact that it allows us to make some immediate improvements to the security situation here in the Capitol," said Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which conducted the probe along with the Senate Rules Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that the findings show an even greater need for a bipartisan commission to investigate the root causes of the attack, referring to Trump's unfounded claims about the 2020 election.

"As the 'big lie' continues to spread, as faith in our elections continues to decline, it is crucial - crucial - that we establish a trusted, independent record of what transpired," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who led the blockade against such a commission, said he's confident the ongoing reviews by lawmakers and law enforcement will be sufficient.

The House in May passed legislation to create a commission that would be modeled after a panel that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told colleagues in a letter Tuesday that if the Senate fails to approve the commission, her chamber will launch its own investigations.

The top Republican on the rules panel, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, has opposed the commission, arguing that investigation would take too long. He said the recommendations made in the Senate can be implemented faster, such as legislation that he and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the rules committee chair, intend to introduce soon that would give the chief of Capitol Police more authority to request assistance from the National Guard.

The Senate report recounts how the Guard was delayed for hours Jan. 6 as officials in multiple agencies took bureaucratic steps to release the troops. It details hours of calls between officials in the Capitol and the Pentagon and as the then-chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, begged for help.

It finds that the Pentagon spent hours "mission planning" and seeking multiple layers of approvals as Capitol Police were being overwhelmed and brutally beaten by the attackers. It also says the Defense Department's hesitant response was influenced by criticism of its heavy-handed response to protests in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George Floyd in police custody.

The senators are heavily critical of the Capitol Police Board, a three-member panel made up of the heads of security for the House and Senate and the Architect of the Capitol. The board now is required to approve requests by the police chief, even in urgent situations. The report recommends that its members "regularly review the policies and procedures" after senators found that the three board members on Jan. 6 did not understand their own authority and could not detail the statutory requirements for requesting National Guard assistance.

Two of the three board members, the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, were pushed out in the days after the attack. Sund, the Capitol Police chief, resigned under pressure.

The report recommends a consolidated intelligence unit within the Capitol Police after widespread failures from multiple agencies that did not predict the attack even though insurrectionists were planning it openly on the internet.

The police intelligence unit "knew about social media posts calling for violence at the Capitol on January 6, including a plot to breach the Capitol, the online sharing of maps of the Capitol Complex's tunnel systems, and other specific threats of violence," the report says, but agents did not properly inform leaders of everything they had found.

On Dec. 28, for example, the report notes that someone emailed a public Capitol Police account and warned about "countless tweets from Trump supporters saying they will be armed on January 6th" and "tweets from people organizing to 'storm the Capitol.'" There were also internal warnings of an uptick in posts on various websites that showed maps of the Capitol, including its underground tunnels. But those specifics were never disseminated widely.

In a response to the report, the Capitol Police acknowledged the need for improvements and said some are already being made. "Law enforcement agencies across the country rely on intelligence, and the quality of that intelligence can mean the difference between life and death," the statement said.

During the attack, the report says, Capitol Police were compromised by bad intelligence, poor planning, faulty equipment and a lack of leadership. The force's incident command system "broke down during the attack," leaving officers on the front lines without orders. There were no functional incident commanders, and some senior officers were fighting instead of giving orders. Capitol Police "leadership never took control of the radio system to communicate orders to front-line officers," the investigation found.

"I was horrified that NO deputy chief or above was on the radio or helping us," one officer told the committee in an anonymous statement. "For hours the screams on the radio were horrific(,) the sights were unimaginable and there was a complete loss of control. For hours NO Chief or above took command and control. Officers were begging and pleading for help for medical triage."

The acting chief, Yogananda Pittman, who replaced Sund after his resignation, told the committees that the lack of communication resulted from "incident commanders being overwhelmed and engaging with rioters, rather than issuing orders over the radio."

The committee's interviews with police officers detail "absolutely brutal" abuse from Trump's supporters as they ran over them and broke into the building. The officers described hearing racial slurs and seeing Nazi salutes. One officer trying to evacuate the Senate said he had stopped several men in full tactical gear, one of whom said, "You better get out of our way, boy, or we'll go through you to get (the senators).'"

The insurrectionists told police officers they would kill them, then members of Congress.

At the same time, the senators acknowledge the officers' bravery, noting that one officer told them, "The officers inside all behaved admirably and heroically and, even outnumbered, went on the offensive and took the Capitol back."

Takeaways: Senate report on 'absolutely brutal' Jan. 6 siege

WASHINGTON - A Senate report examining the security failures surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol says missed intelligence, poor planning and multiple layers of bureaucracy led to the violent siege. It does not fault former President Donald Trump, who told his supporters to "fight like hell" to overturn his defeat just before hundreds of them stormed the building.

In an effort to be bipartisan - and to find quick agreement on security improvements to the Capitol - Senate Democrats wrote the report with their Republican counterparts and largely steered clear of addressing the former president's role. The investigation by the two panels, the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Rules Committee, makes 20 recommendations for immediate security changes, including legislation to give the Capitol Police chief more authority, better training and equipment for law enforcement and an overhaul of the way intelligence is collected ahead of major events in Congress.

The report also details the violence of the day. Senate investigators collected statements from more than 50 police officers who fought the insurrectionists in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Those officers described injuries, verbal abuse from Trump's supporters and fear as the police command structure broke down. Some thought they would die.

"It's our duty to have immediate responses to what happened," and to do it on a bipartisan basis, said Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

Here are some takeaways from the report:

IGNORED INTELLIGENCE

The Senate investigators revealed that the Capitol Police had intelligence in the weeks before the insurrection that some Trump supporters were openly planning a siege to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's victory. An internal report on Dec. 21 referenced a blog with a map of the Capitol campus and comments threatening armed violence. "Bring guns," wrote one poster. "It's now or never."

Separately, private citizens contacted the department and warned of people organizing on Twitter to storm the Capitol. The FBI emailed a memo around that warned of "war."

But most of that intelligence never reached senior leaders, and it wasn't briefed in key security meetings hours before the event. At a Jan. 5 meeting with Capitol Police, Secret Service, FBI and D.C. National Guard, no entity "provided any intelligence indicating that there would be a coordinated violent attack on the United States Capitol by thousands of well-equipped armed insurrectionists," the report said.

The senators recommended that Capitol Police consolidate its intelligence operations into one bureau to "improve the timely sharing of relevant intelligence up the chain of command" and improve coordination with other agencies.

---

NATIONAL GUARD DELAYS

The committee interviewed multiple officials from the Defense Department and the National Guard in an attempt to make sense of the hourslong delay in deploying the National Guard as the rioters were overwhelming the Capitol Police and breaking into the building. They found that the officials described many of the events of the day differently, continuing a pattern of finger-pointing since the attack.

The investigators found that military officials were "mission planning" and seeking layers of approval as they discussed deploying the Guard, and that better preparation on all sides would have sped the process. They recommend that the Defense Department implement more contingency plans in case a quick reaction is needed again.

As Capitol Police begged for National Guard assistance, military officials "spent the afternoon assessing the situation, determining how best to provide assistance, instructing personnel on the mission, and ensuring personnel were properly equipped," the report said.

In the end, the senators write, the D.C. National Guard did not arrive at the Capitol until 5:20 p.m., "after both the House and Senate chambers had already been declared secure."

---

LACK OF POLICE AUTHORITY

The slowed deployment of National Guard troops is also pinned on the Capitol Police Board, an arcane panel of three voting members - the heads of House and Senate security and the Architect of the Capitol - who must approve the Capitol Police chief's requests. The chief at the time, Steven Sund, never submitted a formal request for the troops ahead of Jan. 6, and the members of the board did not understand their own authority and could not detail the statutory requirements for requesting National Guard assistance.

Klobuchar and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee, said they will introduce legislation soon to give the police chief more authority. Change needs to happen "immediately," Klobuchar said.

---

NEED FOR A COMMISSION

While praising the report, Democrats have said it also shows that a deeper look into the insurrection is necessary. Republican senators last week blocked legislation that would have formed a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the attack, including Trump's role, his lies about the election being stolen from him and what led the rioters to lay siege to the Capitol.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that such a commission is "crucial," and he held out the possibility of another vote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the Senate to try again to advance the legislation, which passed the House with the support of almost three dozen Republicans.

To win bipartisan support, the Senate investigators left almost all political references out of the report - even though Trump's election defeat was very much a part of the attack. The document does not use the word insurrection, even though it was one. It includes Trump's speech ahead of the siege only as an appendix, with staff saying they did so rather than assert "editorial judgement" on his words. The staff spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the process.

---

'ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL'

The report includes more than 50 interviews with police, who described how unprepared they were as they were beaten and dragged by the Trump supporters who broke into the building. They described being left with no guidance as the force's incident command system broke down.

"Throughout the seven hours of the riot on the Capitol grounds, law enforcement officers faced verbal and 'absolutely brutal,' violent physical abuse," the investigators wrote.

One officer told the investigators that they were "horrified" that no one was on the radio giving orders or helping the officers. The person said that the screams on the radio were "horrific" and that the sights were "unimaginable" as officers begged for aid.

Another officer described the weapons used, including pieces of a fence in front of the inauguration platform that were torn apart and used to assault officers.

That person listed the objects that were thrown at them: "bricks, liquids, pepper spray, bear spray, sticks of various widths, pipes, bats." Some were armed with guns, the officer said, and others had stun guns. The person said they were sprayed with bear spray "at least 6-8 times while tussling with rioters who were trying to use the bike racks against us as weapons."

While about 300 of the 1,200 officers on duty that day had training and equipment, "the remaining 900 officers had even less training and equipment to defend themselves and the buildings and individuals they are sworn to protect," the report says.

Upcoming Events