Plans to “kill people”
Authorities received indications of Capitol storm
06/27/2023, 9:50 p.m
The storming of the Capitol in early 2021 ends in chaos and shakes Washington. A report by the US Senate committee now shows that the security authorities have received numerous indications of the attack days and weeks in advance. Even plans of the right-wing group “Proud Boys” are known.
According to a parliamentary committee, US security authorities did not take the information given before the violent storming of the Capitol seriously enough. In the days and weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, numerous tips were sent to the two central agencies responsible for homeland security, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, according to a report by the Democrat-led Senate Homeland Security Committee , which Chairman Gary Peters published.
However, the authorities failed to correctly assess the seriousness of the threat based on the information and to derive instructions that would have prepared the security forces for the violence. In December, the FBI received a tip that the far-right group Proud Boys was planning to be in Washington “literally killing people.”
The committee’s investigation found that the FBI had not seriously considered the possibility that threatened actions could actually be implemented. With reference to internal e-mails, the report also accuses the authority of having downplayed the threat situation overall – although there have also been public threats and warnings, for example on social media.
The United States is still concerned with the unprecedented attack on the seat of the US Congress by supporters of then President Donald Trump, who was voted out of office. Several people lost their lives. The attackers wanted to prevent the confirmation of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory that day. Trump had previously incited his supporters.