National guard and then when we included mr. Stanger, the three of us discussed the specific issue as to whether the intelligence warranted the troops and the answer was no. The collective answer was no and then mr. Stanger put forth his recommendation to have them on stand by. And my recollection was mr. Sund was very satisfied with that, in fact he briefed the following day that he was satisfied and i heard no concern anytime thereafter. Were you concerned, this use of the word optics, the appearance, what it would look like to have the guard, this is what mr. Sund has testified was a concern on january 4th, that there was a reluctance to request assistance because of the appearance, was there something that you were whats the appearance that you were concerned about, mr. Irving, if, indeed, you were, were you concerned that having the guard present would look like it was too militarized . Were you concerned about the criticism of the guard being deployed in washington during rioting earlier this summer . The summer of 2020. Give us insight into your thinking there as you recall it. Senator, i was not concerned about appearance whatsoever. It was all about safety and security. Any reference would have been related to appropriate use of force, display of force, and ultimately the question on the table when we looked at any security asset is does the intelligence warrant it . Is the security plan match with the intelligence and, again, the collective answer was, yes. Mr. Chairman, could i just ask one final question . Yes. Thank you, madam chair, thank you. Speaker pelosi has asked retired generous sell honore to review security in light of the attack. The general said the leadership of the Capitol Police, you, mr. Sund, and both of you gentlemen, the house and Senate Sergeant of arms, hes criticizing you for the appearance of complicity during the attack, and also said that you were potentially undertook complicit actions. Those are his words, during the attack. Mr. Sund, were you complicit in this attack on january 6th. Absolutely not, sir, ive heard those comments as well and i think its disrespectful to myself and the members of the Capitol Police department. Mr. Stanger, were you complicit in the attacks on january 6th . Mr. Stanger, were you complicit in the attacks on january 6th . Mr. Irving, were you complicit in the attacks on january 6th . Absolutely not, senator. Yeah, of course none of you were, theres absolutely no evidence to that effect and mr. Sund, i think your comments are appropriately taken, to allege that you any of you were complicit in this violent mob attack on this building, i think, is not only extremely disrespectful, its really quite shocking. And this person has no business leading any security review related to the events of january 6th. Thank you for your indulgence, madam chair. Thank you very much, next a new member of both committees, senator padilla. Thank you, madam chair. Theres been a lot of questions ive been popping in and out from multiple committees but i understand theres been a lot of questions already about intelligence, what was known, what was assessed, what was shared. Et cetera, and differing opinions. Ill try not to be too repetitive. First, a quick question for chief sund and the two sergeant at arms. I imagine, like most people, you saw most if not all of the house impeachment managers presentations before the United States senate as they sort of laid out the case, set the impeachment question aside, we know how that was resolved but in terms of how january 6th didnt just happen, but the leadup to january 6th. Is there anything from that presentation that would disagree with . To make sure i understand, the video i watched and always information, the video that was portrayed is all accurate video, as far as the any of the other commentary associated with the video i cant say i watched every single bit of it but i can tell you a lot of that video was video from the United StatesCapitol Police and after all accurate. Thank you, mr. Stanger. Mr. Irving, same question. The video was certainly what i could see from my window on the day of january 6th. And from my perspective, senator, i have not diagnosed the why the attack occurred at the time. I would leave it to the after investigation. There is an Intelligence Division within the department, correct . Yes, sir. Okay, and now having read your letter to Speaker Pelosi, you make reference to events on both november 14th as well as december 12th that you had sort of comparable intelligence in terms of risk assessment, threat assessment and the events of november 14th and december 12th, not leading into anything near what happened on january 6th. Is that my correct interpretation of your letter . Yes, that is the correct interpretation of the letter. Both assessments indicated militia groups and extremists in attendance. Weapons were recovered during both those events. Okay. And so to the best of your recollection in the leadup to january 6th, since it was comparable assessment, comparable intelligence, roughly, you therefore proceeded with comparable preparation and posture . Yeah, that is absolutely correct. We proceeded with a posture of seeing it could have instances of violence. We knew it was going to be focused on the capitol. We knew that there was going to be members of proud boy, antifa, participating and like i said before, not Capitol Police, not metropolitan police, not any of our federal agencies had any information we were going to be facing armed insurrection of thousands of people. If we take our experience with terrorism globally, and looking at case studies, both incidents that have been prevented and those that were successfully executed against the United States, is it plausible . And i know hindsight is 20 20. Is it plausible that the november 14th, december 12th incidents may well have been trial runs, the very extremist organizations youve referenced involved with the organizing and participation of november 14th, december 12th, to gain counterintelligence on how you and your Partner Agencies would be planning and preparing for such incidents. As you rightly point out when you look at some of the terrorist attacks that have occurred there has been preplanning, there has been presurveillance, precollection of intelligence on the security features. I dont know if the november and december were two instances of that. But i would suspect with the fact were finding that was a coordinated attack i wouldnt doubt there was presurveillance. So we dont know they were, we dont know they werent. Correct. And other intelligence folks will be here at a subs subsequent hearing but were all in this together in your letter and testimony earlier today you bluntly said the Intelligence Community missed this. That is correct, sir, thats the way i feel. Who was commander in chief on december 6th . Donald trump, sir. The Intelligence Community that missed this. For the entire 18 agencies that represent the Intelligence Community. Yes, sir. That would be the commander in chief. And who was that again . President donald trump. May i ask a couple questions on a different topic. I think its obvious to many across the country, i was one of three senators who was not in chambers on january 6th. I had the benefit if you will of watching the events occur in realtime, both inside the capitol and outside the capitol on television. One thing that was not lost on me and many people that ive talked to is the difference in both Police Presence and response on january 6th compared to events from last summer when Peaceful Protesters were demonstrating in the nations capitol in the wake of George Floyds murder. Last summer they were met with significant force. A couple of data points to date some 250 individuals who were involved in the capitol insurrection of january 6th have been arrested. More will likely be arrested in the coming weeks and months but only a small number, about 52 of these individuals were arrested on january 6th. By contrast during the largely peaceful protest of last summer 427 people were arrested. On june 1st, alone, 289 people were arrested. Similarly, some 300 protesters were arrested during the kavanaugh hearings in 2018. So question, mr. Sund, can you tell us exactly how the Capitol Police preparations for january 6th differed from preparations for the protests from last summer . And if you can specifically address if they were the same or different use of force guidelines in place on january 6th compared to the protests of last summer, or any criteria for making arrests on january 6th versus the protests from last summer. Okay, and if you could do that in about a minute yes, maam. Thank you, senator. I will do that concisely. Planning and preparations, we plan for every demonstration the exact same way. Doesnt matter the message of the person, doesnt matter the demographics of the grievance involved in the demonstration, we do it the exact same way, we develop our information, we develop our intel and base a Response Plan on that. So lets transition to preparations. I will tell you we handled the 15 major demonstrations involving black lives matters groups, following the death of george floyd over the summer. We had a total of six arrests, six arrests, no use of less lethal capabilities, no use of lethal force capabilities. The events, everything that we put into place for january 6th far exceeded any planning that we did for any events in 2020, with the full activation of the department, the size of the perimeter that we expanded, the deployment of additional protective equipment, the deployment of less lethal and the application of less lethal far exceeded any event i can recollect on the nations capitol. Ill leave it at that. Thank you. Were going to go, and thank you, senator padilla, were going to go to senator hagerty and senator king who has been patient and been on with us online for quite a while. Senator hagerty. Thank you, chairman klobuchar, thank you for having us here today and holding this hearing. I want to begin by thanking the Law Enforcement officers that are represented here today, you and your families, thank you for your sacrifice and certainly my heart goes out to those families and loved ones who have lost their lives in this. In the spring and summer of 2020 many people criticized the use of the National Guard to help restore order in washington following some of the worst rioting in decades. Mayor bowser said the guard presence was unnecessary and maybe counter productive and a d. C. National guard had to tell his troops, i quote again some of the d. C. Public does not agree with our mission and may have nefarious intentions toward our servicemen, and a Washington Post port said that top pentagon officials emphasized that on january 6th the guard would have a, quote, far more muted presence than in june saying weve learned our lessons and will be absolutely nowhere near the capitol building, mr. Sund has stated that despite attempting to attain National Guard support on capitol hill on january 6th he was unable to get approval for such support and several people today have referred to concerns over the optics of january the 6th. So my first question is directed to mr. Sund. Do you think that the backlash against the use of National Guard troops to restore order back in the summertime led to reluctance in advance of january 6th to utilize guard troops to protect the capitol . Sir, i cannot really testify to what the inner working was, or working decisions over at the pentagon regarding either the decisions from the over the summer or the memo who was put out by the secretary of the army on the 4th. However, i was very surprised at the amount of time and the pushback i was receiving when i was making an urgent request for their assistance. Thats regrettable. Id also like to follow up on a line of questioning that senator hawley broke up. Speaker pelosi indicated she intends to establish a commission to examine the events of january 6th. Thats why were here today, examining those issues. And Speaker Pelosi appointed a retired army general who is going to lead the investigation into what happened but days after the attack that general said i think once all this gets uncovered, quoting him, it was complicit actions by Capitol Police before he added that you, mr. Sund, were, quote, complicit along with the sergeantatarms in the house and senate, my question is do any of you believe that comments like these suggest he is someone well suited to conduct a serious and unbiased review of the events of january 6th . If so, please explain. Ill go ahead and start with that response. As i mentioned before i found the comments that he made regarding myself and also the Capitol Police officers highly disrespectful to the hard working women and men of that Police Department. And also to myself. I welcome and i look forward to an after action that will move this agency forward, move our partnership with the federal agencies forward but it has to be done in an unbiased fashion. I couldnt agree more, mr. Sund. Any other responses . I would disagree with the generals what he said. I dont believe thats true. There was a lot of people that put themselves in very much danger on that day, and i think saying Something Like that is just not in good taste. Yeah, i cant imagine that being said, myself, implying that you all were complicit in this. I thank you for your answers and for your service. I yield back, madam chair. Thank you very much, senator hagerty. Next, senator king. You may be muted, senator king. I got it. Great. Thank you, madam chair, and i want to thank the witnesses, first, for their patience this morning and their thorough answers. This has been a long hearing and i really appreciate it and i appreciate the fact that although you all are no longer other than the chief in washington, no longer in your positions youve come forward to give us the benefit of your observations. It seems to me one of the clear, and im not going to plow this ground again, but one of the clear pieces of information weve learned today is an intelligence failure, a failure to communicate intelligence and i think thats something that we all need to think about and you can be very helpful to us in suggesting what should be the chain of communication in terms of intelligence. You cant adequately prepare if you dont have the information. And it clearly seems to me there were some failures. Chief sund, i have a specific question for you, and its more forward looking, but id appreciate your insights. The question is, how do we protect the capitol from either an angry mob, or probably more likely one or two or three malignant actors without turning it into a fortress. How do we allow the American People to go in the rotunda and tour the capitol, to picnic on the grounds, to play with their kids, it seems to me that Going Forward thats really one of the challenges. We want security but we dont i would hate to see the u. S. Capitol turned into a fortress. Your thoughts, mr. Sund . I think you need your mic on there. Thank you. There we go, maam, thank you very much. Ill go back to your original comment with the intelligence and the communications. I think we have the process in place for when we have credible intelligence, especially high level credible intelligence to quickly get to where it needs to be. I think my big concern is, you know, on the collection, on how wide were casting the net to collect our intelligence that would have revealed this was coming, and we are facing this type of mass insurrection. I definitely want to say the Capitol Police is well versed, well trained on handling what youre talking about, a mumbai style attack, a couple of attackers armed, active shooter events. Those are the type of events were ready for. Its the thousands of people storming the capitol that creates a big issue with us. When you talk about, you know, physical security and i mentioned in my Opening Statement in one of the initial questions i think there are options for maintaining an open environment, an open campus type of environment while putting some substantial physical security measures in place, both for the building, the skin of the building, as well as farther out, you know, time and distance is our best friend and the most important thing is to provide some kind of protection farther out so the officers have more you know, more time to deal with it. But thats something that i think should be discussed in a closed or classified session. I understand. But and i hope that that is a discussion, madam chair, that we can have. I think thats a very important because we just, as i say, we dont want the United States capitol to be so protected that its inaccessible to the American People. Amplify on your intelligence. It seems intelligence answer. It seems to me youre saying its communicated adequately, but we didnt have the collection that we needed. For example, the norfolk, virginia letter, is it how does it get filtered and where does it get filtered . Again, the Norfolk Field Office letter, thats something to consider. Even on the 5th at noon on the 5th i held a joint Conference Call with the members of the board, my executive team, a dozen of the top Law Enforcement and military officials from washington, d. C. Where we discussed the Upcoming Events on the 6th, the inauguration, any kind of threats and issues we may have. And even though i had we had the director of the field office for the Washington Field office of the fbi, nothing was mentioned about it. So i think