Liberals will undoubtedly cheer the conviction this week of , the first Jan. 6 rioter who actually went to trial for his role in last year’s mayhem at the U.S. Capitol.
But a new report, released Tuesday, by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security shows that the riot was another failure of liberals’ favorite project – big government.
According to multiple media reports, the IG learned during a review of the riot that intelligence analysts within DHS failed to act after catching rumblings of potential unrest at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – even though they knew the risk weeks in advance.
As The Washington Times noted Tuesday, those analysts were monitoring “open source” materials to spot the threats, and discovered some of the pro-Trump dissenters claimed to be bringing weapons to the protest, while others talked of promises to “sacrifice themselves.”
“But the analysts did not produce any intelligence documents that would lead law enforcement to take action,” the IG found.
Their alerts were eventually disseminated, but not until two days after the riot.
“Overall, open-source collectors explained to us that they did not think storming the U.S. Capitol was possible, and, therefore, they dismissed this specific type of threat as hyperbole,” the IG said in the report.
Reuters noted that DHS analysts failed to share such information about an assault on the Capitol on at least three occasions. DHS analysts, by deciding to not share what they learned, were “unable to provide its many state, local and Federal partners with timely, actionable and predictive intelligence,” the report stated.
DHS, CNN reported, is the only federal law enforcement agency required by law to share intel with partners.
In addition to the dismissal of the “hyperbole” by pro-Trumpers, the IG attributed the failure to deter the riot to “inexperienced [intelligence] collectors” who had received “inadequate training.”
Interestingly, the IG’s report found that this paralysis occurred partly because of another liberal favorite – protecting the media.
CNN noted that DHS collectors “described feeling ‘hesitancy’ after criticism of the way the office handled intelligence during the protests in Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2020.”
The Times, continuing along that line, added, “Analysts also indicated they were reluctant to raise flags after the Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) division was blasted by critics who said they were overzealous in tracking potential threats in racial justice protests in Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2020.”
The issue with Portland was that journalists’ following the left-wing riots were scooped in intelligence reports along with the rioters.
Although DHS tried to fix that problem, the lessons didn’t take.
“Employees said they were still confused even after more formal training was attempted in the wake of the criticisms over the Portland protest. An internal review faulted the division for flagging open-source information related to the city that higher-ups later said shouldn’t have been collected,” the Times reported of the IG’s finding.
“The analysts said the division then saw a ‘pendulum swing’ toward caution, with employees ‘fearful to report information related to January 6 events.’”
The Times noted DHS senior leaders told IG staffers that they went “too far” in the wrong direction after incidents related to Portland.
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