Inside the Capitol Police’s Intelligence Dysfunction
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The House’s select committee on Jan. 6 may have wound down its work at the end of December 2022, but questions about why law enforcement, including the U.S. Capitol Police, were unprepared for the possibility of an insurrection remain. A new report from the Project on Government Oversight sheds some light on the role that dysfunction in the department’s intelligence division played in leaving the force ill-equipped for what happened on that day.
Molly Reynolds, Senior Fellow at Brookings and Senior Editor of Lawfare, and Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with the report’s author, Nick Schwellenbach, to discuss mismanagement in the intelligence division preceding Jan. 6, its consequences, and what’s changed since.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | The Intelligence Division then issued daily intelligence reports on January 4th, 5th, and 6th. |
| 0:40.0 | All three of those reports said the risk of violence on January 6th would be low. |
| 0:45.0 | So again, there's a failure of supervisory review to make sure within products and between products |
| 0:53.0 | that there was consistency and that the language in those products really reflected the intelligence that was in the capital police's possession at the time. |
| 1:03.0 | So, there's just like breakdowns all over the place. |
| 1:08.0 | And even Farnam herself has admitted in interviews that she should have given those daily intelligence products a closer look and more review. |
| 1:18.0 | So, you know, we haven't seen as much in the interview transcripts of Donahue admitting that he should have done a better job reviewing these products, but they were clearly breakdowns. |
| 1:31.0 | I'm Molly Reynolds, Senior Fellow at Brookings and Senior Editor of LawFair. |
| 1:35.0 | And this is the LawFair podcast, May 17th, 2023. |
| 1:39.0 | The House has slept committee on January 6th. |
| 1:42.0 | May have wound down its work at the end of December 2022. |
| 1:46.0 | But questions about why law enforcement including the US capital police were unprepared for the possibility of an insurrection remain. |
| 1:53.0 | A new report from the Project and Government oversight shed some light on the role that dysfunction in the department's intelligence division played in leaving the force ill equipped for what happened on that day. |
| 2:03.0 | LawFair Senior Editor Quintetjuresek and I sat down with the report's author, Nick Schwellenbach, to discuss mismanagement in the intelligence division for senior January 6th, its consequences and what's changed since. |
| 2:15.0 | It's the LawFair podcast, May 17th, 2023, inside the capital police's intelligence dysfunction. |
| 2:24.0 | So Nick, we've invited you on today to talk about a new report entitled Instructions Eve that focuses on the challenges that face the US capital police's intelligence operations in the run-up to the insurrection on January 6th. |
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