ALARMING

Capitol Cop Told Friend Where Lawmakers Hid on Jan. 6, Report Says

The unnamed officer’s friend is said to have alerted the FBI to the “concerning” statements, for which he now faces disciplinary action.

Three of six Capitol Police officers facing disciplinary action over their handling of the Jan. 6 insurrection are under scrutiny for allegedly posing for selfies with the alleged rioters, while another is accused of divulging the secure location where lawmakers were evacuated during the chaos. Internal documents obtained by McClatchy News detail the evidence obtained by the police department’s Office of Professional Responsibility in its probe of the officers’ conduct. In one case, the FBI tipped off the police department that one of its officers was shown in a Facebook photo with suspected rioters, according to the report. The unnamed officer later said he’d posed with the suspect because he recognized him as an “alpha male” in the riots and wanted to have the photo to be able to identify him later. The internal documents note, however, that the officer apparently made no attempt to collect the suspect’s information.

Two other cases in which officers face discipline for “conduct unbecoming” also involve selfies. Another disciplinary case involves a special agent in the department’s Protective Services Bureau who is accused of revealing classified information to a friend a week after the deadly riot. The friend, who is not identified in the documents, phoned the FBI’s tip line to alert them to the “concerning statements” allegedly made by the agent when he spoke about where lawmakers were held as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. “I don’t want to report a friend of 40 years, but he’s says enough concerning statements that I feel like I need to do this... he’s just fallen into this cult and these beliefs,” the friend was quoted as saying.