FBI, other agencies did not heed mounting warnings of January 6 riots: report
- According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the FBI was tipped on December 20 that Trump supporters were planing to sneak guns into Washington
- The FBI passed the information to law enforcement agencies in Washington but did not pursue the matter, The Washington Post said
The FBI and other key law enforcement agencies failed to act on a host of tips and other information ahead of January 6 that signalled a potentially violent event might unfold that day at the US Capitol, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Among the information that came officials’ way in the weeks before what turned into a riot as politicians met to certify the results of November’s presidential election was a December 20 tip to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that supporters of then-President Donald Trump were discussing online how to sneak guns into Washington to “overrun” police and arrest members of Congress, according to internal bureau documents obtained by the Post.
The tip included details showing those planning violence believed they had orders from the president, used code words such as “pickaxe” to describe guns, and posted the times and locations of four spots around the country for caravans to meet the day before the joint session. On one site, a poster specifically mentioned Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, as a target, the Post said.
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World shocked by assault on the US Capitol by radical pro-Trump supporters in Washington
Romney was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump last February on one charge of inciting an insurrection, which was levelled by the House of Representatives during a second impeachment of the former president.
An FBI official who assessed the tip noted that its criminal division had received a “significant number” of alerts about threats to Congress and other government officials. The FBI passed the information to law enforcement agencies in Washington but did not pursue the matter, the Post said.
“The individual or group identified during the Assessment does not warrant further FBI investigation at this time,” the internal report concluded, according to the Post.
That detail was among dozens included in the report which the newspaper said was based on interviews with more than 230 people and thousands of pages of court documents and internal law enforcement reports, along with hundreds of videos, photographs and audio recordings.