TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Homeland Security Officials Waited Days AFTER Capitol Riot to Share Its Intel

The department’s watchdog said it ran counter to a DHS directive to share intel with non-federal offices, particularly when they received specific threats of violence.

Despite the Department of Homeland Security identifying specific, credible threats of violence before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, it waited two days after the riot to share that intelligence with other law enforcement agencies, the department’s inspector general said in a report Tuesday. Instead, the department shared some general threat information with local Washington, D.C. law enforcement, preventing other local, state, and national agencies from getting “timely, actionable and predictive intelligence.” According to CNN, the department was hesitant to share its intelligence after it erroneously collected data on journalists during the 2020 protests in Portland. Still, the decision ran counter to the department’s directive to share information with other non-federal agencies, particularly as the violent threats included threats to attack the Capitol, threats to lawmakers, and threats involving “sacrificing their lives while conducting violence.”