MADRID, 1 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United States House of Representatives committee investigating the assault on the Capitol has concluded that the FBI and the country’s security agencies could have repelled the riot on January 6, 2021.
Former federal prosecutor Tim Heaphy, the committee’s top investigative adviser, has pointed to the failures in federal law enforcement, noting that law enforcement agencies should have acted on the intelligence documents collected.
“(Trump) was the immediate cause: if it hadn’t been for his words and deeds, it wouldn’t have happened. That being said, what happened on Capitol Hill was also affected by failures by law enforcement to get the broad intelligence that was present before January 6 about threats of violence,” Heaphy explained.
In this sense, the main adviser to the investigation has highlighted that “the application of the law had a very direct role in contributing to the security failures that led to the violence,” as he stated in an interview with NBC.
Thus, he has specified that the Capitol was inadequately defended on January 6, not because of an intelligence error, but because intelligence was not acted on that showed that supporters of former President Donald Trump intended to go to Washington and use violence to avoid certifying the electoral victory of the current president, Joe Biden.
“There was a lot of advanced intelligence on law enforcement, on carrying weapons, on the vulnerability of the Capitol. The information beforehand was quite specific and, in our opinion, it was enough for law enforcement to do a better job,” he said. affirmed.
Investigators have also concluded that the Capitol Police did not deploy enough agents, since federal agencies did not spread “the alarm about the threat” and were “too cautious.” Also, there was confusion about which federal agency was in charge, which hampered the response.
For this reason, the committee has indicated that the agencies made “a crucial mistake” by not publishing an intelligence bulletin on the threats, while it has reiterated that the response would have been very different “if the protesters were black.”
The FBI has defended itself, maintaining that it did everything it could in the incident, while the agency has asserted that it has learned lessons from the riots, intensifying security preparations,” according to statements to NBC.
“Since January 6, 2021, the FBI has continually reviewed our processes, procedures, and policies to assess lessons learned and to make improvements in communication and in the collection, analysis, and sharing of information,” he explained.