According to documents acquired by a Washington watchdog, the Secret Service was made aware of a threat against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi days before the incident on January 6 but did not alert Capitol Police until after protestors had occupied the structure.
The information raises further concerns regarding the collecting of intelligence before to the violent demonstration and the conduct of law enforcement while the incident took place.
According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), emails between officials at the time of the altercations were disclosed on Wednesday.
‘Good afternoon, The US Secret Service is forwarding notice to the US Capitol Police about discovery of a social media threat intended against Speaker Nancy Pelosi,’ says the crucial message, which was reportedly received by Capitol Police at 5:55 p.m.
By that time, police had been fighting protesters for hours; some of them had already uploaded images from the House speaker’s office.
The Secret Service was made aware of threatening tweets on a Parler social media account two days before, according to CREW.
One of them was published on December 31 and said, “#1776 begins anew on January 6!! Struggle for God! Fight for your freedom! Make a stand for your kids! For Trump, fight! Fight for the USA! Struggle for everything… enemies include Bill DeBlasio, Andrew Cuomo, George Soros, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, and Nancy Pelosi.
Tweets from the same account that were purportedly spotted by Secret Service provided advice to demonstrators.
According to one, “DC is extremely BLUE and a stronghold for ANTIFA/BLM,” so keep MAGA clothing concealed until after checking in at hotels. The demonstrators were instructed to “stay with the big group, particularly at night,” and to be aware of police personnel.
As the protest day got closer, the threats become increasingly detailed.
The account said on January 2nd that Biden “would die soon after being elected.”
Patriots will rip off his head, they say. The best-case scenario for him is prison.
The emails show a deluge of public warnings about the potential for violence amid a meeting of Trump supporters, militias, and conspiracy theorists.
Since then, many inquiries have looked into why law enforcement organisations did not act on information to safeguard the Capitol on January 6.
The week after, the GAO released the results of its study of Capitol Police officers who were on the front lines of the structure’s defence.
It said, “Of the 315 policemen who replied to the poll, 153 felt just minimally or not at all prepared to use force or use crowd control techniques during the assault.”
‘Also, 209 officers claimed that crowd control guidance—whether supplied before to or after the arrival of the demonstrators—was less than extremely clear (in some cases, they said it was not provided),’ the report continued.
Overall, it found that police preparation did not adequately take the risk of serious violence into consideration.
And it said that it will keep reviewing the exchange of information in the lead-up.
During an interview on CNN, Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, claimed the agency has a “excellent” working relationship with other agencies but he did not address the timeliness of the texts.
The Secret Service “works relentlessly to provide important intelligence with our law enforcement allies,” the official added.
“The US Capitol Police were given this information for their situational awareness in the correspondence where there was a reference to Speaker Pelosi.”
However, the just made public contacts take place as questions about whether and how the Secret Service maintained text messages from the protest day are being raised by a House committee looking into the incident.
“Over the last month, we’ve discovered that the Secret Service failed to anticipate violence on January 6 despite getting express warnings, then erased important evidence from the day, perhaps in violation of the law,” CREW said.
“The delay in telling Capitol Police about the threat against the Speaker of the House only contributes to the sense that the agency failed to perform its job, and raises further issues.”