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Senate Holds First Hearing On Insurrection At U.S. Capitol; DC Police Chief: Pentagon Was "Reluctant" To Send Troops To Capitol; Ex- Capitol Police Chief: "I Certainly Do Regret Resigning"; DC Police Chief: Capitol Police Chief Says "Literally Pleading" With Pentagon To Deploy National Guard; Security Officials Say They Didn't Get Intel Report Night Before Riot, Indicating A "Critical Threat". Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired February 23, 2021 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

STEVEN SUND, FORMER CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF: I look this as an intelligence problem that impacted this event. Yes.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): So what information would you be - would you have had to an incurred to have raised up the flag to get more resources for the Capitol Police because the thank goodness, I mean, we saw loss of life and thank goodness there wasn't more but one is too many. So what is your threshold that what should be the threshold to protect the capitol? I protect your officers.

SUND: I did an advanced reach out to the Washington DC police to coordinate resources. And I did also go to the both the House and Senate - to request the National Guard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Mr. Clinton, I think I have five seconds and we can take this off the record. But I believe that there's planning, there's some plans by q anon for something to happen to capitol on March 4. I want to hear what steps were taking to protect the capitol on March 4 from any more violent extremists. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Well have you talked to him about that later, Senator Warner has arrived via video? And I also want to mention Senator Peters will work with our witnesses for restroom breaks and the like, and let us know so that we don't want to take a long break. But I can imagine you need a break at some point here. So Senator Warner.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Thank you Madam Chairman. And thank you to the witnesses for appearing today. You know we've talked a little bit about the deployment or lack of deployment of the National Guard. And one of the questions I guess Mr. Sun or frankly, your chief content and the fact that we - the district did not have the ability to bring the guard to the table.

Because of frankly that's what they're not a statement, menopause is not treated, I think in a totally fair fashion. And this is may be outside your lane, but her inability to bring the guard to the table. And actually any of you on the panel can answer this. That to me is a reflection of the disempowerment of the district on a

going forward basis at least in terms of being able to deploy the guard. Shouldn't the mayor of the District of Columbia have the ability to do that without all the additional hurdles they have to go through in terms of federal check checklist?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes I absolutely agree with that.

WARNER: Does anybody else want an answer on that question as well?

SUND: Yes sir. I'm happy to add in. I think we have an established process for the Capitol Police to make the request to the Capitol Police board that is also equally as effective.

WARNER: Well again I feel like the long term discrimination against the district and we've seen it in some of the COVID legislation where they did not receive the same kind of level of support that other states did.

We saw that play out real time in terms of on January 6 being paroled from the previous administration. I actually have concerns with the deployment of the guard was affirmatively slowed down.

I hope that we in the congress will as a supporter of DC statehood, I'd like to see that move forward. But even short of that trying to ensure that the mayor has appropriate powers going forward.

I know there were some questions already raised about the FBI. And whether that the Intel that came out of the Norfolk FBI office was either ever fully relate to all of you individuals.

But can you talk more generally about the FBI is responsiveness sharing of intelligence. I had a number of conversations I called Director Ray on Monday; the fourth trying to express concerns if there might be this kind of activity. I never expected this level of violence.

I had a number of conversations with senior FBI leadership on the fifth to the sixth. I can't believe was I don't think even before that I could have been fully informed of all of what was going to come to pass.

But I felt like the FBI felt that they were in better shape in terms of Intel and preparation than what came to be the case. And I'd like each of you to comment on how well you felt that the FBI did in terms of sharing intelligence and then coordinating when the actual activities on sixth played out.

SUND: So I'll go ahead. And did you - you want me to address that first?

WARNER: Yes I mean I can't see where you all are. So every one of you can take a crack at that.

SUND: I'll go ahead and start first. I think the relationship we have with the FBI is outstanding. I think in my time with metropolitan in my time here, we've seen nothing but the relationship get better.

The construct that we have that's very similar to some of the other major cities is having the joint terrorism task force being involved with that. The information we're getting in is good.

[12:05:00]

SUND: I think the process and having like I said earlier the wider lens of what information is being collected maybe looking at the agencies that are consumers of their information and what their intelligence collection requirements are is something we need to look at.

But I think you know getting that information in and then having it processed and pushed forward in an effective manner is something we need to look at.

I would say on the sixth, when this started happening you know immediately the FBI you know as being a partner of ours established a process where with Capitol Police and FBI police, we can begin to analyze video footage, analyze other evidence to begin going out and making arrests of the individuals that had created the insurrection on the capitol.

WARNER: Did we get an Intel beforehand? If we get the balance of that panel to respond?

ROBERT CONTEE, ACTING CHIEF AND DC METROPOLITAN POLICE: Yes sure. I would echo what chiefs on just mentioned; we've had a great working relationship with the FBI. I think it's a hole of intelligence approach not specifically just the FBI when we have something as significant as what occurred here at the U.S. Capitol.

If you know if there's information specific information out there that our government is responding to, I would think that something of that nature would rise to the level of more than just an email of a set off to law enforcement agencies that should be a larger, more evolved conversation about specifics on that, you know not just some of the - raw information that's out there.

We see a lot of that but I think it's more of a whole intelligence approach. And that specifically the FBI, they are great partners to metropolitan police department.

WARNER: Thank you. Let me just - I don't know if any of the other panel members want to --want to add any comment on that. Let me just say that this is - my concern is that in Virginia, we've seen these kind of anti government extremists take to the streets of Charlottesville in 2017 resulting in the death of heather hire.

We see the same kind of groups come to the forefront. And on January 6, I think this is an ongoing threat to national security. I fear at times that while the FBI and others have pointed this out that it didn't get the level of serious review that it should have.

With the prior administration I felt at times that they did not want to take the information that was coming out of the FBI. I hope on a going forward basis we're going to be able to be more coordinated in terms of taking on anti government extremism whether it comes from the left or the right. This is a real ongoing threat.

I can tell you from on our intelligence committee that we've seen that many of these groups have connections and ties to anti government extremist groups in Europe where they've taken a great precedent.

I know my time is expired Madam Chairman, but this is something we need more work on. Thank you for holding this hearing.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you very much Senator Warner. We look to working with you and the intelligence committee on this. Next will be Senator Lankford. And after that Senator Carper.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): Thank you. - I want to try to validate something. There's a letter that's in the public domain at this point that's an eight page letter that was written to Speaker Pelosi that is attributed to you to try to explain the events of that day. Are you familiar with that letter in the public domain? And is it accurate?

SUND: Yes it is sir.

LANKFORD: So in the letter itself you describe several things in this in the details in the timeline on it. Can you tell me why you wrote this letter to Speaker Pelosi? What was the purpose of the letter?

SUND: I feel at the time I resigned, I had limited communications with my department. I know my department was getting ready to go and testify at some of the initial committee hearings.

And I think that she had called for my resignation without full understanding of what we had prepared for what we had gone through that. I think she deserved to read you know firsthand what we had prepared for and what I what I dealt with that that for that six.

LANKFORD: OK that's helpful. You'd said in this you've talked several times about thousands of well coordinated well equipped violent criminals and described them with climbing gear and all the things that you've also testified here.

You also mentioned this letter about the pipe bombs that were located that the first word will come at 1252 that a pipe bomb had been located at the Republican National Committee headquarters. How was that located? Who found it and why was that particular moment the moment that it was found?

SUND: I don't know why there was a particular moment that was found. I believe it was an employee of the Republican National Committee that had located it in the rear of the building that had called it into Capitol Police headquarters.

[12:10:00]

LANKFORD: You had mentioned before that you thought this was part of the coordination that there were several that were out there that would take away resources at that exact moment. But there's no way to know that they would find it at that exact moment.

I'm glad they did find it; they found another one at the Democratic headquarters as well at 150. And you document that as well. But you had to send quite a few individuals to be able to go to the RNC and the DNC to be able to go deal with those explosives that were planted there. Is that correct?

SUND: That is correct. And just for your information the RNC pipe bomb that was one that was really run by Capitol Police. The DNC metropolitan ended up taking that and running that so we can run two concurrently.

That resulted in the evacuation of two congressional buildings, the cannon house office building as well as one in the library of congress buildings. So it took extensive resources.

LANKFORD: So the assaults in the Capitol are not what caused the evacuation of those buildings. The discovery of those pipe bombs is what caused the evacuation those--

SUND: That is correct sir.

LANKFORD: There's been quite a bit of conversation today. And quite a few members here that have talked about the National Guard and the length of time that it took to be able to go through the bureaucratic process to be able to get them deployed.

I do think that needs to be shortened obviously in a deployment structure and the complexity of the bureaucracy here. But it seems to be a misunderstanding on this die as some individuals describing the National Guard as if they're the riot police that can automatically be called.

They're not where you expected them to be like a rapid response swat team at this point. What's a typical response from the National Guard to be able to call them out when they're not currently positioned?

SUND: I believe the typical response once they are approved is approximately two hours.

LANKFORD: OK. But then the approval process is obviously multiple hours to do that or multiple days to do that. You had started that process several days before and making some requests.

SUND: So that is correct. As far as the process you know my initial request was over to Mr. Irving, it was actually an in person request on the fourth. And it was until the evening of the fourth that I talked to General Walker that he informed me that if needed because Mr. Stringer wanted me to ask him if they can lean forward, they could get 125.

LANKFORD: Right.

SUND: If needed in a fairly, fairly quick fashion once approved. So that's when what leading into January 6 when we made the initial request at 109. LANKFORD: But that 125 individuals from the National Guard that were

prepared to be able to move faster because they were in streets in different places due to traffic duty at that point. You had already been informed that the city of Washington DC in the mayor's office had made a request to DOD and DOD had approved it that none of them would be armed.

None of them would be have heavy gear on. There would be no military vehicles that'd be available to them. They had to use unmarked vans and other government vans and there would be no helicopters that would be used.

Those were prohibited that day for those 125 individuals that were already on the street. Is that correct?

SUND: So just for correction at the time no, I did not know that was the restrictions being placed on them. And to when I talked to General Walker the evening of the fourth, which was Monday evening. The 125 he was going to give us were 125 that we're doing COVID relief for the District of Columbia not assigned to the traffic post.

LANKFORD: OK. So the individuals that were assigned to traffic duty had no weapons, had no military vehicles moved had no overhead visual on anything that at all been requested know from the city of Washington DC.

And then for the other individuals that could be assigned to you as a rapid force. Those are folks that were currently doing COVID duty. So you had no swat team, this descriptions very interesting to me around this dyes that people think that suddenly the National Guard just bursts in and is ready to go on. That's not what their National Guard is pre positioned to do.

SUND: That is correct. Anytime we request the National Guard, they've been in an unarmed fashion. I was looking for them to help support the perimeter that we had established.

LANKFORD: OK, there's been some concern that I've talked to some of the officers here. And there's obviously been some conversation around these dyes as well about the rules of engagement and about training and authorization.

There wasn't training for what to do with a mass group actually come through the door and tries to burst through. Whether it's an insurrection type event, whether it's just a mob that's gone crazy. And whatever may be your protest, it gets out of hand to be able to burst through the door.

There was no clarity for the officers inside the building on their rules of engagements. Once they actually came to the building. They literally my impression, I just had to make it up on their own. And they determined their stand was going to be where the members and the staff were located.

That was going to be their stand to start using lethal force. So I have a couple questions for that. At this point now and understand hindsight 2020 is there a need for much greater, less than lethal force capability on officers at the time or available to officers at time that they have less than lethal capabilities.

And clear rules of engagement of what to do if you have a group of individuals come into the building unauthorized.

SUND: So just for a little clarification, we do train for people trying to get into the building. We don't train for when I said an insurrection of thousands of people.

LANKFORD: Right.

SUND: And armed officers do have less lethal capability that they carry with them with hindsight being what it is from January 6.

[12:15:00]

SUND: Absolutely, I think there needs to be additional training additional equipment to consider this type of attack in the future.

LANKFORD: Well the challenge is we all watched this summer. In fact, this committee at homeland security had a hearing on the assaults on a federal courthouse in Portland and went through and all of a salt for a month.

Individuals just attacked that courthouse day after day after day. And we saw the techniques that were used. Some of those same techniques were used by individuals that came in here not saying it was the same individuals.

But some of those same techniques are trying to be able to work to the fence to be able to find it to be able to find a way to be able to attack officers. So the challenge is that we saw that there - that this was rising, I guess that people were watching on TV, people attacking a federal institution all summer long.

And it is a follow up that we're going to have to do in the days ahead of how to be able to get less than lethal capability. And that find ways to be able to stop any kind of assault of a number of individuals to be able to come on the capitol.

So appreciate your service. I appreciate very much the officers that continue to be able to serve because they've not had a gap. They've not had a break since that time period. And I know you still interact with him at least I hope you do.

SUND: I certainly will.

LANKFORD: And I would encourage you to pass on from us our gratitude. And we're all looking at this as hindsight 2020 saying why couldn't you read the tea leaves at this particular scrap of intelligence that came in the night before? None of us saw it at this level. And Sund, we're grateful for the service to continue to do and let's find the lessons we can learn.

SUND: Thank you very much, sir. I know they appreciate your support as well as the support of congress. They're a hell of a police agency.

KLOBUCHAR: OK. Thank you, Senator Lankford. Next thank you for your patience Senator Carper.

SEN. THOMAS CARPER (D-DE): My pleasure, thank you Madam Chair. - Former governor in the first - for years I recall in which instances in which I call on the National Guard. In emergencies it could have been the floods, blizzards by storms, drought, you name it a lot more.

I know the importance of the work that our citizens have done for decades in the state and other states around the country. As we have learned in contrast to every other state National Guard in the country, the DC National Guard operates differently.

And I'm convinced if someone had been able activated out though DC national guard. And have thousand or two thousand guardsmen and women deployed at the capitol in a timely way on the sixth of January, this destruction, death and destruction would not have occurred.

The leader of the unlike all the states of the 50 states and we have the leader, the District of Columbia - power to activate the DC National Guard during an emergency. That's one of the reasons why I worked for years with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to support legislations with Washington DC as our 51st state and to provide equal rights the Americans who make this community lower.

So 700,000 people their home - there is question cheap - your testimony, you highlight a request for DC National Guard assistance at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 would have been - would have had to have been made by the U.S. Capitol Police with the consent of the U.S. Department of Defense.

You just take a minute to explain that process and why Mayor Bowser is not able to request DC National Guard assistance when federal installations and property as well as human lives are threatened in the district that she leads. Please go ahead.

CONTEE: Yes thank you for the question. Yes. So the mayor does not have full authority over the national bar to include their activation or deployment. When the mayor, we make a request as the District of Columbia we make a request, we send that out to the federal government.

Ultimately the secretary, the secretary of the army oversees that request. There's a whole approval process that that request has to go through in order for National Guard resources to be deployed to the District of Columbia.

Unlike governors and other states that are able to activate their national bar without going through those approval processes and receiving approval from the highest level of the federal government.

We just - that just does not have to take place in other states. So a real hindrance to us in terms of our response and the ability to follow them up. CARPER: Thanks. So thanks for that response. Could you just take a

minute to share with us your thoughts and whether having DC National Guard under the command of the mayor or a governor of a neighboring state might help the DC metropolitan police in coordinating with federal authorities to better protect the city and its citizens. And along with federal installations during assault like the one we've experienced on January the sixth?

[12:20:00]

CONTEE: Yes I think we - I think we certainly should. We found we know even on that day on January the sixth, prior to any movement of the National Guard from the assignments that they had been given the traffic posts.

Again that required approval at the highest levels of the federal government to include the secretary of the army, the secretary of defense in order to just move the national bar or changing mission in essence. So yes, I think that that should certainly be something that falls under the mayor's authority.

CARPER: All right. Thanks so much. A question if I could for Mr. Sund. In your testimony you state that events on January 6 were not the result of poor planning on behalf of the U.S. Capitol Police. But rather a lack of actionable intelligence that would have allowed the - that would have allowed the - let me start over.

Rather a lack of actual intelligence that would have allowed the U.S. Capitol Police to properly prepare. As I was looking through Mr. Stingers' testimony, former sergeant at arms, the U.S. Senate he stated and I want to quote he says the chain of information and resources is paramount for success. That's it. That's his quote.

I strongly agree with that statement. Mr. Sund, what went wrong leading up to January 6 with regard to gathering and sharing actual intelligence. Why do you think the likelihood of a truly devastating attack was so badly under estimate? Mr. Sund?

SUND: I think as you start to hear some - from some of the federal agencies on the investigations that are currently going on, where they're finding evidence that this was a coordinated attack that had been coordinated among numerous states for some time in advance of this.

That's the information that would have been extremely helpful to us. For them to detect some type of level of coordination that would have given us the indication that we're going to see more than just a may become violent that you know may be inclined to violence type of - type of preparations.

You look at it. Now you see you know knowing what occurred, you see what type of resources is brought to bear around the Capitol. That type of information could give us you know sufficient advanced warning to prep plan for more of an attack such as what we saw.

CARPER: Great. Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke and --you probably a lot of people and certainly my generation. Remember what we have here is a failure to communicate. That was right at the end of the film.

What we have a failure to communicate. Do we have a failure to communicate here - I'm not one who's crazy about like pointing fingers and assigning blame, but to whom do we assign that failure to communicate?

SUND: I believe that questions for me, sir. What I what I look at is you know we have a process for communications and they've been a consumer of intelligence. I look at it more of you know we're-- I think there's a failure of having a wide enough lens to look at what are the current threats that we're facing in a nation now from some of the domestic extremists?

I think the communications processes are there, they need to be worked on a little bit. But I think the intelligence community needs to broaden its aperture on what information it collects.

CARPER: We now know in retrospect that the gathering on the writers on January 16 began on January 5 or the fourth or the third, it started like weeks before. And was fomented encourage as we now know by - among others our president.

And somehow that all of that work and all the intelligence were gathered by the FBI and other homeland security never got. And found this way to the people who live here DC could have used it to most to avoid what the tragedy of January the sixth. Thank you.

Our thanks too particularly to the officers of the Capitol, the U.S. Capitol Police and others who joined them and joined to protect us and in this Capitol on that Saturday.

UNIDENTIFIFED MALE: I know that we have several members ready to go and we want you to go as quickly as possible. But there's been a request from our witnesses who have been here a long time. If we could give them a five minute break. And then we will reconvene in five minutes with additional questions. So we will recess for five minutes.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: I'm John King in Washington. You are watching a very important committee hearing here, Two Senate committees asking law enforcement officials what went wrong on January 6.

The day of course of the deadly Capitol insurrection, what intelligence did they receive beforehand? Were there miscommunications about force posture before that day and on that day, very important conversation just the beginning of several investigations into the insurrection?

And exactly what went wrong and what can be done to prevent such an attack in the future. With me to share their reporting and their insights on this important day is CNN's Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, the former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and the former DC Metro Police Chief, Charles Ramsay.

Chief Ramsey, I want to start with you as we listen to some of this. And number one, we applaud all the officers and the bravery on that day. Number two, hindsight is 2020 as many of the witnesses have said so it's easy now to criticize things that we did not see that day.

But even having said all that and trying to have some grace for human behavior and human error, there's several things have come up that are frankly quite alarming.

[12:25:00]

KING: One is the Capitol Police Chief acknowledges that the FBI did send a pretty harsh warning the night before on January 5 went up to Capitol Hill. But they say it never reached the leadership saying that you should that - this is a potential for a war posture, a serious attack how can that happen?

CHARLES RAMSEY, FORMER POLICE CHIEF, DC METRO PD: Well obviously it did happen. I mean that is truly a breakdown in communication to say the least. You know I keep hearing people over and over again saying well, you know we didn't have a lot of information were raw information.

You know intelligence rarely paints a full picture. But I think there was enough information there for them to have responded differently than they did in terms of having enough people available for immediate deployment.

If it's true that it actually went from the joint terrorism task force to the Capitol Police intelligence section. And the sergeant in charge of Intel did not pass that on, and then I mean that is just totally inexcusable.

I mean that is the kind of information you need. And it's occurring the day before of the eventual action itself. The other thing that I think Conti mentioned that was very important. And during the time I was in DC, I had a great relationship with the FBI.

I never worried about in critical information needed to get to me why, because the assistant director in charge of the FBI, Washington field office will pick up the phone and call me. And tell me if something was going on that I needed to be aware of.

It wasn't an email, it was a phone call same in Philadelphia. And I think that we rely too much on emails and faxes and other things for critical information. That stuff needs to get to the right people very, very quickly.

KING: And so Andy McCabe let's follow up on that very point in the sense that if the FBI had this intelligence and it was that these people were, "prepared for war" that's not something you pass through the mid level bureaucracy thinking somebody will eventually see it and call a meeting and move it up the email chain.

If you had a document or a warning that said these people are coming prepared for war I assume if you were in that job, you would call the chief and you would call the Capitol Police Chief.

And if you didn't think they were taking it seriously, maybe you'd call the speaker of the house and the majority leader in the United States Senate. Am I wrong about that?

Should this - should the person who had this document we're talking chief Ramsey's laying out what happened when it was received? Was the person - did the person delivering this intelligence have more of a responsibility?

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Well John, there is a deep responsibility there. I couldn't agree more with Chief Ramsey. And I'd like to point out also we've been down this road before. We were - we at the FBI were roundly criticized in the aftermath of the Boston bombing for failing to do exactly what you just described.

When you have a key, a key piece of intelligence that in this case bears direct impact on an event that's within you know 24 hours, 48 hours you don't rely on the regular pass it to the JTTF hope that the Capitol Police Officer on the JTTF happens to push it fast enough and far enough up his chain of command.

You as a leader in this law enforcement community pick up the phone and you call that police chief and say hey, I just saw one that really concerned me. I think you need to take a look at it.

KING: And so Dana one of the things I think viewers around the country probably understand a lot more now because of the horrific insurrection day is that when you hear that all the different stakeholders here is this is an incredibly complicated collision of jurisdictions in the sense that the United States Capitol Police is responsible for the Capitol building.

The house sergeant of arms priority as house members, the senate sergeant of arms priority is Senate members. The DC police department does not have any jurisdiction on the capitol grounds.

The DC mayor cannot order her National Guard to deploy it has to go up through the pentagon because it's not a state. On this day those different jurisdictions and the dysfunction among in between cost lives.

DANA BASH, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm going to add one more dynamic to that which is that in congress there in for the sergeant at arms and both the House and the Senate and to some degree, the Capitol Police because there's a chain of command there.

The politicians, the elected officials have a lot of say in the protection of the Capitol as part of conversations with those entities. And that is different from a lot of law enforcement entities across the country. And I mean we you know, Chief Ramsey is certainly has experience with that.

And my unanswered questions still and watching the many hours of testimony this morning is whether or not the political leaders were yes, they weren't. It seems to me that they weren't told.

But whether or not it is a culture that needs to be changed that the expectation was that maybe you know, they wouldn't have liked the optics separate and above. [12:30:00]