Nearly two-and-a-half years after the January 6^th U.S. Capitol Riot, the evaluation of our nation’s intelligence services and lessons learned continues as the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs released its report, Planned in Plain Sight: A Review of Intelligence Failures in Advance of January 6, 2021. 

With Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) at the helm as Chairman, Committee staff reviewed the amount and type of intelligence gathered by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) leading up to January 6th as well as communication and coordination with partnering agencies and law enforcement to share that intelligence. The Peters report found that while the FBI and I&A had sizeable amounts of intelligence which suggested great potential for violence and disruption on January 6^th, they seriously underestimated the true threat level and failed to communicate this critical information to partnering agencies. This failure resulted in frontline law enforcement being ill-prepared to prevent or effectively respond to the attack on the U.S. Capitol Complex.

At the Committee’s March 3, 2021, hearing on the Capitol attack, Chairman Peters said,
“[I]t is clear that this violent coordinated attack was the result of a massive and historic
intelligence failure.”

Senator Gary Peters, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The report offers seven recommendations directed at the FBI, DHS-I&A, and Congress to address failures of each agency as well as take steps to prevent future threats from casting a pall over national events that should be demonstrations of democracy and peaceful transitions of power. Some of the recommendations include:

Designate January 6^th as a National Special Security Event (NSSE) which would require elevated multiagency security, intelligence, and preparation
The FBI and DHS should conduct internal after-action reviews on the intelligence collection, analysis, and communication processes leading up to January 6, 2021
Improve FBI and I&A policies and procedures for the collection, analysis and dissemination of intelligence to partner agencies

For more information, check out the 2021 report Examining the U.S. Capitol Attack: A Review of the Security, Planning, and Response Failures on January 6, the HSDL In Focus topic on the January 6^th Capitol Attack or the HSDL Series on the January 6^th Capitol Attack.