(PresidentialWire.com)- One of the Capitol Police’s top intelligence analysts submitted a furious email to superiors just three days after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, calling attention to what he claimed was a failure to heed a strong intelligence warning that right-wing rioters planned to storm the Capitol.
In an email to his superiors dated January 9, 2021, Eric Hoar wrote that analysts have reported for weeks that Patriot organizations are expressing their intentions to storm the U.S. Capitol with overwhelming numbers on social media.
“I don’t know what was going on in the background, but I hope that material was presented with the accuracy it merited, and not just a one-time Event Assessment,” he wrote.
Hoar expressed his concern that political considerations had trumped the need for security in the days preceding the violence.
He said it is unethical and dangerous to suggest that political or aesthetic considerations should take precedence over sound intelligence, he said.
“I hope the meaning of this notion is now OBVIOUS to ALL Officials, Commanders, and Stakeholders. This is a concept I have known for a long time, and I know you are aware of this as well.”
Hoar left the Capitol Police’s intelligence division after the riot because he feared reprisals. He then transferred to the Homeland Security Department, where he is now in charge of instructing numerous agencies, including the Capitol Police, on how to prevent failures like the one he criticized in his memo.
Before suffering significant injuries in a car accident that rendered him wheelchair-bound, Hoar served in the American military abroad and then as a uniformed officer with the Capitol Police—later transferred to the intelligence division.
House Republicans are preparing to release a wealth of information they have gathered showing intelligence and planning lapses by the police, as well as the first proof of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s contacts with the security apparatus before the riots as Democrats wrap up their Jan. 6 investigation.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim Banks, chairman of the GOP Study Committee, have been working on a counter-investigation to the committee’s findings since January 6.
Hoar explained why he waited a few days to provide his evaluation to the department’s leadership in his email titled “1/6 intelligence failures”: he wanted to give his rage over seeing his coworkers needlessly put up a battle against a riot that should have been contained or prevented time to diminish.
Documents show that intelligence about right-wing extremists planning to storm the U.S. Capitol was passed around from December 2020 until the day before the riots on January 5, 2021. The FBI, Homeland Security Department, and D.C. Metropolitan Police warned officials about the threats. In December 2020, police received a six-page collection of extreme threats and plans made online.
They included instructions to storm the chamber where the certification of election results was scheduled to take place. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were mentioned in threats. The final instructions given by Capitol Police to its front-line personnel made no mention of potential hazards, despite all the intelligence that had come in about possible violence at the Jan. 6 election vote-counting event. The department’s final Civil Disturbance Units plan for crowd and riot control was released on January 5, 2021.
