‘Their plan is to literally kill people’: Senate Democrats reveal new details about intel warnings ahead of January 6 attack

By Zachary Cohen, Annie Grayer and Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — The January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was “essentially planned in plain sight on social media” and yet the FBI and Department of Homeland Security appeared to have “completely dropped the ball,” a Senate committee concluded in the latest highly critical assessment of the security failures.

A new report released by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee paints a freshly damning portrait of various intelligence failures by the FBI and DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, agencies tasked with preventing domestic terrorism.

Internal communications from both agencies, obtained by Democrats on the panel, reveal new details about how top officials either ignored or dismissed clear indicators of potential violence by pro-Trump actors ahead of the US Capitol attack – leaving law enforcement unprepared for what ultimately unfolded that day.

At the same time, the report states that former President Donald Trump “was the primary cause of the insurrection,” which it says the bipartisan House January 6 select committee’s investigation demonstrated.

“President Trump, his lawyers, and elected officials seeking to curry favor repeated false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen, and that coupled with President Trump’s calls for a protest in DC on January 6 that would ‘be wild,’ directly contributed to this attack,” the Senate report states.

The report goes on to say, “But the fact remains that the federal agencies tasked with preventing domestic terrorism and disseminating intelligence – namely FBI and I&A – did not sound the alarm, and much of the violence that followed on January 6 may have been prevented had they done so.”

Asked about the Senate report, a DHS spokesperson told CNN that since the Capitol attack, the department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”

According to the spokesperson, the department’s office of intelligence and analysis (I&A) has taken “steps to enhance its capacity to collect and produce intelligence about homeland security threats.” Additionally, its “operations, policies and priorities” have been under review and recommendations are being developed.

“As Secretary Mayorkas has said, the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a violent assault on our democracy,” the spokesperson said.

In a statement to CNN, the FBI said it worked with law enforcement agencies to share information before and during the Capitol attack.

The FBI added that since the attack, the agency has increased its focus on sharing information quickly to state and local partners and has centralized “the flow of information to ensure timely notifications” to FBI agents and field offices around the country about possible threats.

Among its conclusions, the report states that there was a noticeable uptick in violent online rhetoric ahead of January 6, particularly on right-wing and pro-Trump social media sites, which was identified by intelligence analysts in both agencies yet never deemed to represent a credible threat.

“What is shocking is this attack was essentially planned in plain sight on social media. And yet it seemed as if our intelligence agencies completely dropped the ball,” Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee, told reporters on Monday while previewing the report’s findings.

“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 6,” the report adds.

Over 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol attack, nearly a third of whom have been charged with assaulting police that day, according to the Justice Department.

Members of the far-right groups the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have pleaded guilty to or been convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in planning to stop Biden from assuming the presidency.

The FBI is still looking for hundreds of individuals they believe committed violent acts at the Capitol that day.

‘Please, please take this tip seriously’

Both the FBI and DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis “obtained multiple tips from numerous sources in the days and weeks leading up to the attack that should have raised alarms,” the report states.

Among the specific examples cited in the report is a December 2020 tip the FBI received warning one far-right group, 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,” the anonymous individual wrote to the FBI at the time, according to the report.

In the recent trial against several leaders of the Proud Boys it was revealed the FBI had more than a dozen informants in the far-right group around the time of the January 6 attack.

The Senate report also notes that DHS intelligence collectors expressed concerns in the days before January 6 about individuals who were sharing a map of the US Capitol building online.

According to the report, these analysts messaged each other on January 2, saying: “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.”

Yet both 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 6,” the report says.

The Senate report also builds on concerns that the FBI and DHS focused their efforts on clashes between protestors instead of the growing threat to the Capitol itself, and argues that both agencies were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after the criticisms they faced for their handling of the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020.

These findings undercut a key criticism from Republicans who, in seeking to whitewash the Capitol attack, have often claimed law enforcement targeted conservatives in their open-source searches surrounding the insurrection.

Trump, who is currently leading a crowded Republican primary field ahead of the 2024 presidential election, continues to downplay and make false claims about the events of January 6. Peters acknowledged that political reality could pose a challenge as he seeks to implement reforms outlined in his report.

“It makes it very difficult to work in a bipartisan way when, when you have folks who are unwilling to question a president of their party,” Peters said on Monday. “We’re hoping that the facts that we have discovered as a result of this investigation will open some eyes to folks and realize that we need to make sure that our intelligence agencies are working effectively regardless of who is the president.”

“These are serious threats that the American public faces from internal domestic terrorism, and it’s our duty to protect our citizens and our constituents,” he added.

Special counsel Jack Smith is currently overseeing a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and January 6, a probe that could ensnare several of Trump’s allies and possibly even the former president himself.

New details about FBI monitoring capabilities before the attack

The Senate panel also uncovered new details about how a change in the FBI’s open-source monitoring capabilities days before the Capitol attack put the agency at a disadvantage to track online threats and activity.

According to emails obtained by the committee, FBI officials did not learn about a switch in contracts to monitor open-source information until the day the change was set to take effect: December 31, 2020. The FBI had been using Dataminr, which used pre-defined search terms to identify potential threats from voluminous open-source posts online, and the change to a new company called ZeroFox began on January 1, 2021.

On the FBI’s last day under the Dataminr contract, the Washington Field Office sent an email to the FBI Office of the Chief Information Officer stating “an urgent need” for the Dataminr replacement to be working by January 4, “in support of some potential issues in the DC area.” The employees argued that not having a social media tool that they were trained on would inhibit their ability to track threats on January 6.

“Do you have a timeline on when you will release the new system? The sudden discontinuation is most untimely as much of our crisis response funnels through Dataminr,” the email reads.

Jennifer Moore, who had that message forwarded to her and is identified by the report as the executive assistant director of human resources at the FBI, wrote back, “how did the [sic] expire without a replacement firmly solidified? Is this the first notice we have gotten? Ughhh.”

The Washington Field Office staff replied “yep, had no idea this was coming. Unless they are [turning] on the replacement January 1, we’re in an unfortunate spot for next week.”

The FBI stated that the transition from Dataminr to ZeroFox days before January 6 “was a challenge” and “was not ideal,” according to a written response from the FBI to questions from the panel.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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