Capitol Riot: Witnesses Contradict Democrats’ Claim that Attack Was Expected
Witnesses at the first major congressional hearing on the Capitol riot testified that they did not expect the building to be targeted by violence — directly contradicting what Democrats told the Senate impeachment trial earlier this month.
The hearing, held jointly by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, included Paul D. Irving, the former Sergeant-at-Arms for the House of Representatives; Michael C. Stenger, the former Sergeant-at-Arms for the Senate; and Steven A. Sund, the former Chief of the Capitol Police. All three resigned after the riot. Acting Chief Robert J. Contee III of the D.C. Metro Police also testified, as did Captain Carneysha Mendoza, who suffered burns to her face and nearly had her arm broken during the January 6 riot.
“Based on the intelligence that we received,” Sund said, “we planned for an increased level of violence at the Capitol, and that some participants may be armed, but none of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred.”
He later added: “No entity, including the FBI, provided any new intelligence regarding January 6th.” As such, he said, the Capitol Police prepared for a protest that could become violent, but never prepared for an attack on the Capitol itself.
During the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, the House impeachment managers — all Democrats — repeatedly argued that the attack on the Capitol had been expected as a result of President Trump’s alleged “incitement.”
During Trump impeachment II, Democratic House managers repeatedly told the Senate that FBI, other agencies warned top Capitol Hill officials that there would be trouble on January 6. 2/7 https://t.co/QRHx9956ei
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 23, 2021
Here is what Rep. Raskin told the Senate: 3/7 pic.twitter.com/jJ6ljJI7jI
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 23, 2021
Here is what Rep. Neguse told the Senate: 4/7 pic.twitter.com/lEowFiT8GN
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 23, 2021
Here is what Rep. Swalwell told the Senate: 5/7 pic.twitter.com/Ty2Nb4iLdP
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 23, 2021
Here is what Del. Plaskett told the Senate: 6/7 pic.twitter.com/2cw16TFJXQ
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 23, 2021
But the witnesses disagreed. In his prepared statement, for example, Irving said that neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security “assessed or forecast a coordinated assault on the Capitol like the one that took place.”
Contee said in his prepared statement: “To be clear, available intelligence pointed to a large presence of some of the same groups that had contributed to violence in the city after demonstrations in November and December. The District did not have intelligence pointing to a coordinated assault on the Capitol.”
Sund wrote: “Although it appears that there were numerous participants from multiple states planning this attack, the entire intelligence community (IC) seems to have missed it.” Sund later added that he did not think the Capitol riot was “foreseeable,” given the intelligence that was provided at the time.
Witnesses said that the attack on the Capitol was well-coordinated and well-equipped, with clear advance planning.
The riot began 20 minutes before President Trump finished his speech about the election, more than a mile away at the Ellipse.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
NY Times
- Inside the Tent Camp Housing Thousands of Migrant Children – ‘No Place for a Child’
Migrant children and families are sleeping shoulder to shoulder on mats in a Texas border facility designed for 250 people that is now holding more than 4,100, according to some of the first photographs to emerge from the crowded camp that has become a focal point of the Biden administration’s struggles to absorb thousands of […]
- Atl Suspect’s Fixation on Sex Is Familiar Thorn for Evangelicals
“Sex addiction” is not an established psychiatric diagnosis, and there is a debate in the mental health community about how to define and treat compulsive sexual behavior. “There’s no evidence-based treatment for sex addiction,” said Joshua Grubbs, an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University and a clinical psychologist. Evangelical sex addiction treatment […]
- Tom Cotton Mocks Social Justice Warriors at New York Times in CPAC Speech
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Friday mocked “social justice warriors” at the New York Times and their “meltdown” this summer over his op-ed in the paper calling for troops to restore order during the rioting at the time. Speaking on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, Cotton recalled how hundreds […]
- Congress Clears 2-Day Spending Extension to Finalize Stimulus Deal
Negotiators worked into Friday night to put the finishing touches on key details of the stimulus compromise, continuing negotiations on how long unemployment benefits should last, how to distribute federal relief for small businesses and the extension of a federal eviction moratorium. The plan was expected to revive the Paycheck Protection Program, a loan program […]
- SACRAMENTO Unemployment Scam Using Inmates Names Costing California Hundreds of Millions
SACRAMENTO — A rash of fraudulent pandemic unemployment claims filed under the names of jail and prison inmates, including more than 100 on death row, has bilked California out of hundreds of millions of dollars, a law enforcement task force said Tuesday. In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, the task force, led by district […]
- Politics, Science and the Remarkable Race for a Corona Vaccine
WASHINGTON — The call was tense, the message discouraging. Moncef Slaoui, the head of the Trump administration’s effort to quickly produce a vaccine for the coronavirus, was on the phone at 6 p.m. on Aug. 25 to tell the upstart biotech firm Moderna that it had to slow the final stage of testing its vaccine […]
- Newsom Do as I Say, Not as I Dine Coronavirus Message
SAN FRANCISCO — It was an intimate meal in a wood-paneled, private dining room in one of California’s most exclusive restaurants. No one around the table wore masks, not the lobbyists, not even the governor. [Sign up for California Today, our daily newsletter from the Golden State.] Photos that surfaced this week of a dinner […]
Washington Post
- Report: Oklahoma Congressman Missing After Secret Rescue Attempt in Afghanistan
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) has reportedly gone missing after attempting a rogue evacuation mission to rescue five American citizens that President Joe Biden’s administration left behind in Afghanistan. According to the Washington Post, U.S. officials are now “unsure of Mullin’s location” after he requested help from the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan on Monday with his evacuation […]
- Report: Taliban Offered Biden Control of Kabul, but He Declined
The chaos in Afghanistan could have reportedly been avoided altogether if President Joe Biden had accepted the Taliban’s initial offer for the U.S. to have full control of Kabul and the airport. According to a report from the Washington Post, as the Taliban began taking control of Afghanistan, senior U.S. military leaders met with Taliban political […]
- Exclusive: Despite Facebook Bias, Breitbart News Destroys Establishment Media on Platform
Despite the presence of a range of leftist “fact-checkers” with the power to suppress posts on the platform and open censorship of conservative news stories by Facebook, Breitbart News is demolishing its establishment foes on Facebook. Facebook has an established track record of censoring conservative media. It censored the New York Post twice, first for the Hunter […]
- NBC News Hit Piece on Grassroots Parents Battling K-12 Critical Race Theory Draws Fire
An NBC News hit piece on grassroots parents’ groups battling Critical Race Theory (CRT) and woke education in K-12 schools has drawn a flood of criticism. The piece, published Tuesday, titled “Critical Race Theory Battle Invades School Boards – with Help from Conservative Groups,” was written by Tyler Kingkade, Brandy Zadrozny, and Ben Collins, and […]
- WaPo: Biden made false claim about Georgia election law
The Washington Post fact-checking team on Tuesday said that President Joe Biden made a false claim about Georgia’s new election law. The Post‘s team pointed to two similar lines from his Thursday press conference and a written Friday statement criticizing the state’s new law after Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed it, respectively. MORE ON WAPO: […]
- Federal Judge Accuses New York Times, Washington Post of ‘Shocking’ Bias Against Republicans
Judge Laurence Silberman accused the New York Times and Washington Post of being “Democratic Party broadsheets” in a dissenting opinion on Friday. Washington, DC, federal appellate judge Laurence Silberman accused the New York Times and Washington Post, and to some extent the Wall Street Journal, of being mouthpieces for “rather shocking” bias against the Republican […]
- WaPo reveals source who gave them fake quotes from Trump-Georgia call
Shutterstock After The Washington Post issued a long correction for a January 9 report alleging then-President Donald Trump pressured a Georgia election investigator specifically to “find the fraud” and that she would be a “national hero” if she did so, the newspaper revealed the source who supplied them the false quotes. The Daily Wire earlier […]
