Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) testified to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that a belief that far-right extremists and rioters would be “friendly” to law enforcement that day caused “intelligence failures.”
“People thought they were friendly to law enforcement and that they loved their country,” Bowser said in a newly released transcript. “People didn’t think that these white nationalists would overthrow the Capitol building.”
The mayor’s interview was included in the latest batch of transcripts released by the Jan. 6 panel as it winds down its high-profile investigation into the Capitol attack.
Congress this month honored officers with the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6. More than a hundred officers were injured that day and five officers died after the attack, one from a stroke and four from suicide.
But law enforcement personnel, including the FBI, have been criticized for failing to anticipate the sheer scale of the violence on that day, even with social media posts and online activity ahead of the Jan. 6 rioting indicating it would not be a peaceful protest.
The final report from the House panel released last week faults law enforcement for failing to act upon intelligence and bolster security at the Capitol.
But the more than 800-page report dedicates comparatively little space to the issue, focusing more extensively on the actions of former President Trump.
A GOP counter-report released earlier this month slams law enforcement and leadership failures for leaving the Capitol vulnerable that day.
MPD Police Chief Robert Contee III, whose interview with the House committee was also released on Thursday, said there was a flurry of “social media chatter” leading up to Jan. 6, including the discussion of people bringing firearms and taking over the Capitol.
In response, Contee said the city issued a curfew, warned against bringing firearms to the city and asked for backup from the D.C. National Guard. The full MPD department was also staffed around the city that day.
But Contee told the House panel that police have a “dual role” of protecting the city and ensuring demonstrations can be carried out peacefully under the First Amendment.
“If there is no criminal nexus or criminal intent, especially in the early stages of an investigation, or things that are being said in the open source space, that doesn’t necessarily equate to criminal behavior,” the police chief said.
Contee also said that MAGA demonstrations in D.C. prior to Jan. 6 showed that far-right protesters were not hostile toward police, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Bowser, however, told the committee that far-right protesters and rioters were “becoming aggressive with the police” and vandalizing the city during the demonstrations in December 2020.
“So that was the first time we saw those groups really disrupt and vandalize and were very aggressive with the police,” the mayor told the House committee. “I think our experience with them in December showed us that they were antagonistic to law enforcement.”
