Planned in Plain Sight

This attack on our democracy came in the wake of years of increasing domestic terrorism in this country – which top federal law enforcement and national security agencies had previously identified as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat to the homeland.

In June 2021, this Committee and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration released a report following a joint investigation on the security, planning, and response failures on January 6th. That report found that agencies tasked with security on January 6th failed to adequately prepare for the Joint Session and quickly respond to the attack. At the direction of U.S. Senator Gary Peters, Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), Majority Committee staff conducted a subsequent review focused on the intelligence failures leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. This investigation found that the breach of the Capitol on January 6th was also the result of a failure by federal agencies to assess and disseminate intelligence about the potential for violence that day.

The intelligence failures in the lead-up to January 6th were not failures to obtain intelligence indicating the potential for violence. On the contrary, the two primary domestic intelligence agencies – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) – obtained multiple tips from numerous sources in the days and weeks leading up to the attack that should have raised alarms. Rather, those agencies failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that 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 on January 6th. At a fundamental level, the agencies failed to fulfill their mission and connect the public and nonpublic information they received. Internal emails and documents obtained by the Committee demonstrate the breadth and gravity of the threats these agencies received related to January 6th. For example, FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) received tips and information from multiple sources, including:

·  In December 2020, FBI received a tip that the Proud Boys planned to be in DC and “[t]heir plan is to literally kill people. Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”

·  On Jan. 3, 2021, FBI also became aware of multiple posts calling for armed violence, such as a Parler user who stated, “[b]ring food and guns. If they don’t listen to our words, they can feel our lead. Come armed”; plans to “set up ‘armed encampment’ on the [National] Mall”; and a tip about “a TikTok video with someone holding a gun saying ‘storm the Capitol on January 6th.’”

·  On January 4th, DOJ leadership noted multiple concerning posts, including “[c]alls to occupy federal buildings,” discussions of “invading the capitol building,” and individuals “arm[ing] themselves and to engage in political violence at the event.”

In addition to these tips and intelligence, FBI also had the authority (with appropriate restrictions to protect Constitutional rights) to obtain and assess the myriad threats and warnings that were being publicly reported in the press and on social media. Yet while FBI was receiving these and other increasingly concerning reports, internal emails obtained by the Committee demonstrate that the Bureau continued to downplay the overall threat, repeatedly noting that FBI “identified no credible or verified threat.”

I&A was also increasingly aware of calls for violence in the days and weeks before January 6th. For example:

·  In late December 2020, I&A analysts “identified comments referencing using weapons and targeting law enforcement and the U.S. Capitol building.”

·  On Dec. 30th, I&A open-source intelligence collectors noted online “[d]iscussions of organizing in Virginia and then driving to DC armed together as the police/military won’t be able to stop thousands of armed patriots.”

·  On Jan. 2, 2021, I&A collectors noted that individuals were sharing a map of the U.S. Capitol Building online, and the I&A collectors messaged each other, “feel like people are actually going to try and hurt politicians. Jan 6th is gonna be crazy,” and “[l]ots of discussions of coming armed to DC.”

Despite that intelligence, as late as 8:57am on January 6th, a Senior Watch Officer at the DHS National Operations Center wrote “[t]here is no indication of civil disobedience.”

FBI and I&A failed to issue sufficient warnings based on the available intelligence indicating January 6th might turn violent. FBI issued only two documents specific to January 6th, both of which were issued by Field Offices the night before the attack, contained only limited raw intelligence, and had limited distribution. This investigation found that in lieu of formal products, FBI communicated intelligence to its partners informally while downplaying the severity of the threat. For example, FBI reported relaying information on calls with its partner agencies, but those agencies reported that on those calls FBI did not issue urgent warnings anticipating violence. This investigation found that part of the reason FBI failed to take more action to warn its federal partners and the public was because it failed to seriously consider the possibility that threatened actions would actually be carried out, and it dismissed each individual threat as not credible in isolation but failed to fully consider the totality of threats and violent rhetoric associated with such a contentious event. FBI also focused on potential clashes between protesters (e.g., the Proud Boys) and counter-protesters (e,g., Antifa) based on its experiences with previous demonstrations, at the expense of focusing more attention and reporting on the growing threat to elected officials and the Capitol itself.

Similarly, I&A did not issue any intelligence bulletins specific to January 6th, and instead issued only high-level products in 2020 that described general threat trends nationwide. The DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that I&A circulated some intelligence internally but failed to share it with its agency partners, at least in one case because I&A assumed that the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) was receiving the information from other agencies. Moreover, I&A’s mistakes during racial justice demonstrations in 2020 – during which the agency was criticized for over-collecting intelligence on American citizens – resulted in a “pendulum swing” after which analysts were then hesitant to report open-source intelligence they were seeing in the lead-up to January 6th. Internal emails obtained by the Committee also show that even as the attack was unfolding and USCP was urgently requesting intelligence, I&A analysts struggled to assess the credibility of online posts calling for violence at the Capitol. For example, at 2:58pm on January 6th, after a riot had been declared and the Capitol had been locked down, I&A analysts internally noted online chatter that “called for more violent actions but at this time no credible information to pass on has been established.”

FBI and I&A have the legal authority to monitor and report on open-source intelligence such as social media, with certain restrictions specific to First Amendment-protected activity – but both agencies failed to follow their own internal guidelines on how to collect and report that information. The Special Agent in Charge of the Intelligence Division at the FBI Washington Field Office on January 6th conflated the Bureau’s standards for taking more intrusive investigative action on a tip versus merely reporting it to partner agencies, which was one reason FBI did not share more intelligence it was seeing. GAO also found that FBI employees wrongly concluded that they could not process certain online tips because they determined they were not credible – despite FBI policy requiring every tip to be logged, regardless of credibility. FBI’s open-source monitoring capabilities were also degraded mere days before the attack, because the Bureau changed contracts for its third-party social monitoring tool. Internal emails obtained by the Committee show FBI officials were surprised by the timing of the contract change, and lamented the negative effect it would have on their monitoring capabilities in the lead-up to January 6th. Likewise, I&A analysts wrongly believed they could not report the concerning posts they were seeing about potential violence at the Capitol because they did not deem them credible, despite agency guidelines requiring them to report non-credible threat information if it meets other criteria such as providing additional information about a known threat or a risk of violence.

Finally, this investigation found that multiple federal agencies failed to effectively coordinate in the lead-up to January 6th, contributing to the failures that allowed the Capitol to be breached that day. Officials disagreed as to which agency was taking the lead role, with Department of Defense (DOD) officials pointing to DOJ as the lead, but DOJ and FBI officials stated that no agency had been designated the lead. Officials from other agencies also reported confusion about who was in charge. DHS also did not designate January 6th as a National Special Security Event, which it routinely does for significant events and which would have bolstered security and coordination. Furthermore, when asked about what went wrong on January 6th, officials across agencies passed blame, largely pointing to failures at other agencies for what happened.

To address these failures, FBI and DHS should conduct full internal reviews of their actions in the lead-up to January 6th, improve their processes for assessing and sharing intelligence (including open-source intelligence on social media), designate Joint Sessions of Congress to certify the Presidential election as a National Special Security Event, and improve inter-agency coordination for other significant events, and Congress should review and reform I&A’s mission in domestic intelligence. The Committee also faced challenges in obtaining full compliance with its requests, an increasingly regular occurrence across administrations. Congress should reassert its authorities in legitimate oversight of the Executive Branch.