Weaponization for dummies?
The Trump-hating deep state was asleep at the wheel. How weird:
A new Senate committee reportsharply criticizes the FBI and Department of Homeland Security for what it says were failures to believe the intelligence tips they were receiving in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — offering fresh examples, nearly 2½ years later, of warnings and information that went unheeded.
The report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s majority staff, titled “Planned in Plain Sight,” expands on previous findings, including reporting by The Washington Post, about red flags missed in the weeks leading up to the pro-Trump riot that delayed Joe Biden’s certification as president.
It also contains additional instances and context for what the authors describeas a failure by federal intelligence officials to believe the many warnings they received.
The 105-page report said the FBI and DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners with sufficient urgency and alarm to enable those partners to prepare for the violence that ultimately occurred on January 6th.”
The document sheds new light on the many different types of warnings the FBI received — from nongovernmental organizations tracking extremism online, from the public, and from its own field offices. Days after the riot, The Post revealed the existence of a Jan. 5 report from the FBI’s Norfolk office warning of online discussion of attacking Congress. But the Senate report includes a similar, previously unknown written warning issued that same evening by the New Orleans FBI office.
That New Orleans warning noted that some participants in the planned “stop the steal” protest had decided to establish an armed, so-called Quick Reaction Force in Northern Virginia.
One person in an online discussion among militia members said “people should bring mace, flash lights, body armor, and head protection,” according to the report. “Participants were aware of the prohibition on firearms in Washington, District of Columbia, so they planned to establish an armed presence outside the city to respond to ‘calls for help.’”
That description matches actions taken by members of the Oath Keepers, a number of whom have since been found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their roles in preparing and planning for the Jan. 6 chaos.
The report by the New Orleans field office was sent to all FBI field offices, as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, DHS, Justice Department, National Security Agency and State Department. Still, the Senate committee criticized the FBI for what it said was a lack of urgency or alarm in its direct conversations with officials before Jan. 6, and said the written reports did not convey a sense of the overall volume of threat information agents were receiving at the time.
They blew it off. We don’t know why, maybe they just assumed they were a bunch of yahoos blowing off steam. Would they have done that if they happened to be Muslim?
But still, you would think that if they were so virulently anti-Trump that they would have rolled up this plot before they could do anything to help him stay in office, wouldn’t you? Where’s the weaponization?