A top intelligence analyst for the Capitol Police sent a scathing email to superiors three days after the January 6 Capitol riot, accusing them of ignoring clear intelligence warnings that rioters planned to storm the Capitol.
“We analysts have been reporting for weeks that Patriot groups are commenting on social media their intentions to storm the U.S. Capitol with overwhelming numbers,” Eric Hoar wrote in an email to his bosses on Jan. 9, 2021, according to a report from Just The News. “I don’t know what was occurring behind the scenes, but I hope that information was briefed with the veracity it deserved, and not just a one-time Event Assessment.”
Hoar was particularly concerned that security concerns had taken a back seat to political considerations.
“The notion that valid intelligence is trumped by optics or political decisions is unacceptable and puts lives in danger,” he wrote. “This is a concept I’ve understood for a long time, and I know you are aware of this as well, and I hope its meaning is now OBVIOUS to ALL Officials, Commanders, and Stakeholders.”
Just The News has his full memo.
John Solomon notes that Hoar’s “mention of ‘optics’ appears to be a reference to the language used when House Democratic leadership rejected an offer days before Jan. 6 from the Trump Pentagon to send National Guard troops to assist Capitol Police.”
Just The News reported that “Hoar’s assessment is directly backed up by hundreds of pages of internal Capitol Police documents obtained by Just the News showing Hoar and other colleagues in the intelligence division receiving detailed warnings from the FBI, Homeland Security Department, the U.S. Marshals Service and D.C. Metropolitan Police that right-wing extremists were plotting to storm the Capitol and attack lawmakers.”
Some of the intelligence was sent multiple times to government officials in an effort to get their attention over the Christmas break in 2020. Matthew Hurtig, one of Hoar’s colleagues, forwarded some information from the FBI on social media threats from right-wing extremists to “storm” the U.S. Capitol and “hang” politicians, adding, “I apologize if this is a double tap with the email.” The email was dated Dec. 31, 2020.
All of this raises major questions as to why these threats were ignored and why requests for more security were turned down, including Trump’s request for 10,000 National Guard troops. One might guess that the reason is that Democrats wanted the riot to happen so they could use it as a pretext for impeaching Trump again.
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