The Jan. 6 Committee was a completely partisan exercise, the purpose of which was to try to smear President Donald Trump and other Republicans before the election and try to incapacitate Trump from running again. In both endeavors, the Committee lost, since Republicans still took the House and Trump has not been done in, they produced no real evidence against him.
But they also failed in another way. They were so concentrated on their political effort, they haven’t highlighted or resolved the failures of security of that day. The House GOP report noted the security problems. They also explained how what they found blew up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)’s narrative that she didn’t have any involvement in the security plans. Their report showed Pelosi’s staff was intimately involved in the planning.
Now the former Chief of the Capitol Police Steven Sund is saying that the problems of security have still not been addressed. He said there was a “failure” in the upper ranks of the Capitol Police that left it unprepared and “almost two years after the events of Jan. 6, the department is not in a better place or on a readier footing.” He also pointed to the problems related to Pelosi.
Sund has a book coming out, “Courage Under Fire,” in which he details some of his concerns. “Few people in the department feel there is a viable plan to move the agency into a better position. Hundreds of officers have left the department since Jan. 6 and many feel it is only going to get worse.”
But you would think that would have been the first concern — making sure the Capitol was secure in the future. But because the Democrats have been in charge, it hasn’t been, they’ve focused on politics and their agenda.
He noted that some agencies like the Capitol Police intelligence unit had some indications that there might be problems, but they failed to properly act on it.
“The security and information-sharing policies and mandates put in place after September 11 failed miserably on January 6,” Sund wrote. “We failed miserably to see the apparent warning signs and the danger, like a ‘gray rhino,’ charging right at us.” [….]
But there was a failure at the top of the Capitol Police,” he said, adding that the “biggest intelligence failure was within my department.”
However, Sund also pointed to the problem of Congressional leadership.
He also wrote that he learned following the attack that the sergeants-at-arms hired by Senate and House leaders declined a request he made days before Jan. 6 that the National Guard by put on standby because they thought House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wouldn’t permit it, according to the Post.
He said flaws in the power structure at the agency, such as congressional leaders’ political concerns overruling the chief’s security assessments, remain, per the outlet.
Sund warned that the department’s command structure, which he wrote had serious consequences on Jan. 6, is “a recipe for disaster.”
He recommended a fundamental change in the power structure under which congressional leaders would let future Capitol Police chiefs carry out their own security plans alone, rather than having to report to the Capitol Police Board, according to the Post.
As we reported, Trump offered the National Guard wanting to make sure the event was “safe” and the DoD’s Carol Corbin reached out to the Capitol Police and asked if they wanted them, but the Capitol Police turned it down. But then on Jan. 4, after an intelligence briefing, Sund asked the sergeants-at-arms if he could have authority for the National Guard to assist at the Capitol, and was turned down by them, according to the Capitol Police timeline of events.
So the only National Guard detailed before the riot started were those authorized to help with crowd control to D.C., not to the Capitol. Even those were very limited and Mayor Bowser had made it clear that she didn’t want more people. Why? Because when the Guard had been detailed during the BLM/Antifa riots, leftists flipped out and complained.
Sund’s account, therefore, corresponds with what the GOP report found — that a part of the problem was failures traceable to Pelosi on some level. Not only does there need to be accountability on the issue, but the new Congress also needs to resolve the outstanding problems and provide the proper security for the future.