WASHINGTON – The FBI and the New York City Police Department passed information to Capitol police about the possibility of violence during the January 6 protests against the counting of the Electoral College, and the FBI even visited more than a dozen extremists who already investigated. to encourage them not to travel to Washington, senior law enforcement officials told NBC News.
The previously unreported details underscore the claim by a top FBI official this week that officials have no indication that violence is a possibility. , including a riot that was shot and killed by police.
“Social media is just part of a complete intelligence picture, and although there were protected activities on social media to threaten some people, investigators up to this point have not found that there was an organized plot to gain access to the Capitol. to get, ” a senior FBI official told NBC News.
It was immediately clear after a violent mob seized the Capitol on Wednesday that the Capitol police, whose job it is to defend the facility and the lawmakers working there, misjudged the security threat. The head of the force was quickly forced out of his post, as were other key law enforcement officials.
But as evidence shows that some extremists have told the world via social media what they have in mind, questions arise as to whether the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies took these postings seriously enough – and if so, why they first stepped in before the building was attacked.
Asked if police’s slow response was due to a failure of intelligence on Wednesday, Steven D’Antuono, the official leading the FBI’s Washington office in Washington, said it was not, and added: “There was no indication that there was anything (planned) other than the first amendment-protected activity.”
DC police chief Robert Contee said something similar on Thursday, telling reporters: “There was no intelligence that suggested there was a violation of the U.S. Capitol.”
Ken Rapuano, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland security, told reporters that the Department of Justice and other law enforcement officials had repeatedly told the Pentagon that they had no indication that there would be “significant violent protests”.
But there were actually enough indications of potential violence.
As NBC News reported, a digital flyer released on Instagram and Facebook in December referred to what would happen as: “Operation Occupies the Capitol.”
On the edge message board 8kun, which is popular with QAnon fans, users have been talking for weeks about a siege of the Capitol.
“You can go to Washington on January 6 and help storm the Capitol,” one 8kun user said a day before the siege. “As many patriots as we can do. We will storm government buildings, kill police, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents and demand a retelling.”
“With regard to the January 6 protests, the violent rhetoric we see online is on a new level,” said Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy Inc., a global research organization studying disinformation and extremism. , said NBC News in a story published the day before the riot. “There are endorsements of violence on all platforms.”
How could the FBI and other agencies have missed it all? It appears they did not do so, officials told NBC News.
“Prior to this incident, the FBI obtained credible and practical information about individuals who intended to travel to the protests that expressed a desire to engage in violence,” the FBI senior official told NBC News. “The FBI could discourage those individuals from traveling to DC”
The official added that “the FBI and our federal, state and local partners have gathered and shared available intelligence in preparation for the various planned events. The FBI was prepared to adapt, as necessary, to liquid events on the ground, including the speed response teams in reserve. For most of the day, the crowd was peaceful and non-confrontational. ‘
“However, when it became clear that some individuals were descending on the Capitol site and entering the buildings, U.S. Capitol police asked for help. Within 50 minutes of the request, three FBI tactical teams were on the scene to take control of the area. “and provide protection to members of Congress and staff. During the evening, the presence of the FBI eventually grew to more than 150 agents and other staff.”
The official was unable to explain why D’Antuono, the head of the Washington field office, said there were no indications of violence.
The FBI official said the bureau could have prevented an even more violent situation by preventing some extremists from traveling to Washington.
The NYPD, which has the strongest intelligence-gathering and analytical division of any local police agency in the country, has sent law enforcement agencies across the country – including the Capitol Police – an information packet covering threats and violent rhetoric on social media over the weeks described and days before the January 6 meeting, several senior law enforcement officials told NBC News.
Officials say Capitol police have obtained a specific and separate intelligence report describing threats of violence and extremist rhetoric that have appeared on social media in connection with the protest.
Law enforcement officials familiar with the intelligence evaluations say President Donald Trump’s admonition of the crowd to march to the Capitol likely led to a much larger contingent of people heading there than would otherwise have occurred.
Capitol police and the FBI’s field office in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It was not just police agencies that issued warnings. A private intelligence report released in December, obtained by NBC News, notes that ‘the’ million-MAGA march ‘in Washington DC on January 6 is the next big flash point … the mass event (which took place in the National Mall and outside the Capitol) are likely to incite street violence, some of which are fatal, between Antifa and Trump supporters or far-right groups. ‘
Many questions remain as to why the FBI, DHS and other agencies have no longer acted to ensure that the Capitol is protected. Officials said police in the Capitol had assured everyone that they could handle the situation, and key lawmakers also said they had heard the same assurance from the power.
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington is in charge of crowd control in the city, and the mayor of Washington has told Justice Department officials that they do not want or need their help. While police in the city helped take back the Capitol, they could not stop the crowd from getting there.
But the FBI is also being investigated. The highest investigative priority is terrorism, foreign and domestic. If it was a conspiracy by Al Qaeda to storm the Capitol, some experts believe, it is likely that the FBI would have arrested the participants before they left their airports when they wanted to fly to Washington.
One difference, however, is that there is no law on domestic terrorism, which means the FBI can suspect fewer opportunities to monitor legally, including their placement on the dark web, said Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of the FBI and current NBC News contributor, said.
Figliuzzi said on Saturday outside a criminal investigation of a specific individual or group: “The FBI may not monitor, monitor and monitor the same things that you and I can look at on Twitter and Parler.”
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, said there are tools the FBI can use to monitor potential violence by domestic extremists. She suggests that the matter is important and emphasized.
“The challenge for the FBI and DOJ is to give permanent priority to domestic white supremacist terrorist groups and treat them just as seriously as they treat foreign terrorism,” she said.