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Senate Holds First Hearing On Insurrection At U.S. Capitol. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 23, 2021 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It seems to me that they weren't told but whether or not it is a culture that needs to be changed that the expectation was that maybe, you know, they wouldn't have liked the optics separate and above and apart from the idea that the FBI obviously is, Andy McCabe said, it's just common sense when you see something that dire, you pick up the phone.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Right. And Chief, which gets to the point that, look, this is, you know, it's -- as I said, a collision of jurisdictions you lived it when you were the D.C. police chief. That's for understandable reasons. We're not going to resolve the D.C. statehood debate here in this conversation right now. But should there be some sort of a trigger, an emergency, when you reach a certain point, one person is in charge, and one person gets to call the shots, and then that person is held accountable the day after the week after the month after. But in this case, you have too many cooks, frankly.

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, yes, no, you're right. I mean, in an emergency, a real emergency, the bureaucracy needs to be cut through and you need to be able to access the resources you need in a timely fashion. I have worked with the D.C. guard. They are very, very good, not only for things like traffic control, and so forth. I've actually used them especially during the International Monetary Fund World Bank protests in the early 2000s. They have people that are trained in crowd control.

Now, we had them tucked away. We didn't just show them, but we had to actually deploy them on a couple occasions to actually help us man the lines and had they not been there, we would have lost the line. And so they are very good at what they do. But they're no good if they're not there. And so you have to be able to access them as a resource in a timely fashion because if you do, then you're able to be able to deal with a situation far more effectively.

KING: We're going to sting in a very quick break. I just want to remind our viewers the Senate Homeland Government Affairs Committee, the Senate Rules Administration Committee, they were in a quick break, should be back momentarily. A look, ask questioning law enforcement officials about what they knew in advance of the January 6th insurrection, what happened on that day, and lessons learned since. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I want to take you straight back up to Capitol Hill, Senator Gary Peters resuming this important hearing.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): Thank you very Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses.

Mr. Sund on January 4th, MPD arrested the leader of the Proud Boys for destruction of property and possessing high capacity firearm magazines. And on the following day on January 5th, the FBI issued a report through the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes going to the U.S. Capitol Police. And that report noted that on the far right media, the threats include things such as the comments such as be ready to fight, Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, blood from their BLM and Antifa slave soldiers being spilled, get violent, stop calling this a march or rally or protest. Go there ready for war. We got our President or we die, nothing else will achieve this goal. Did you get that FBI intelligence report?

STEVEN SUND, FORMER CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF: So I address our right wing when we started. The United States Capitol Police Department did get that report. I was just advised to that in the last 24 hours. That report made it from the Joint Terrorism Task Force over to our Intelligence Bureau over our two sergeant there and cease moving forward at that point. No leadership, myself included, over a Capitol Police was made aware of that at the time of the event.

MERKLEY: So there is -- you've referred in your testimony to the individual who is the head John Donohue, the director of intelligence on the U.S. Capitol Police. And did he receive that report but he did not pass it on to you as head of the USCP?

SUND: Again, I have no knowledge that he received that report. I've been told it went over to a official, the rank of sergeant and didn't move any farther from there.

MERKLEY: OK. That's very concerning. Where there not procedures for the head of the intelligence on the U.S. Capitol Police to get the intelligence report to review it like especially when there were significant other indications of potential violence and make sure that you as the leader had that knowledge on which to develop additional plans if additional plans were needed?

[12:35:18]

SUND: I'm sure that's something that they're looking at in their current after action. Yes, there is a process for it. But, again, that's, as I mentioned before, that was raw intelligence that was coming in. And, again, taking in consideration with everything else, none of the other intelligence were showing that we're looking at this type of a broad insurrectionist type of event with thousands of arm coordinate individuals.

MERKLEY: I know you're saying that the folks are looking at that now. But my question was, did you have a procedure for important intelligence to be brought directly to your attention? And did that system break down? And that's why you did not see the warnings about blood being spilled, get violent, call, you know, be ready to come and die.

SUND: Yes, there is a process in place to make sure that critical, important information is brought up to the leadership. Again, that was something that would have gone through the development and the analysis of that information.

MERKLEY: OK. So you're saying the intelligence side of U.S. Capitol Police failed to get that into your hands? Let me turn to Rules of Engagement. So officers are out there, and there's an expanded perimeter, which you've referred to, and you have those kind of perimeter fence that look like bike racks. And under normal situation, those -- tell peaceful protesters, this is where you stop. Was there any sort of discussion or training about what to do if protesters started picking those things up and opening holes in that perimeter? What were the Rules of Engagement? If I'm a police officer that day on the line over the Capitol Police, how was I suppose -- was I trained like, what do I do when those perimeter fences are breached? Do I use spray? Do I use a stun gun? Do I use tear gas? What am I -- do I have a clear sense of exactly how I'm supposed to respond?

SUND: Yes, there is a Rules of Engagement. There's use of force policy. And there's also civil disobedience unit training, that has to do with when you have a noncompliant group, how you deal with noncompliance in gaining compliance, which would include hand control techniques, the application of chemical spray, and then impact weapons.

MERKLEY: So on that day, you issued Rules of Engagement that included what specifically, I'm an officer, what was I supposed to do if those barricades were breached?

SUND: There's Rules of Engagement that exists. They weren't issued just that day. They existed --

MERKLEY: They don't vary from event to event based on threat analysis?

SUND: No, sir.

MERKLEY: So that perimeter, you said got larger, which meant police officers were spread out over a larger area. So once it was breached, what are the directions to the police on the team to be able to retreat to a defensible point?

SUND: So what we had is we had what's called an incident command system established, you have an incident command for both the exterior, the resources on the exterior of the building that would provide those officers, those CDU units, with specific directions on where to go, what's the next step, you're going to retreat up to the upper west terrorists, which I believe which is what they were told to do, as well as an integrated system inside the building handling the joint session and activities going on inside.

MERKLEY: So I'm out on the plaza and the crowd swarms past me, I have an assigned place to go to retreat to that is defensible?

SUND: The incident commander would be providing direction to people in the field on what -- where to retreat to make the next stand.

MERKLEY: So no advance in for information. And how do you avoid the situation of those who are guarding a door closing and locking the door and leaving police officers stranded outside of that locked perimeter?

SUND: So your question is, how do you prevent that, is what you're saying?

MERKLEY: How do you prevent that? If there aren't -- if you've got folks who are guarding a door and protesters trying to get through it, so they're trying to lock that and prevent it, and there isn't a pre plan for how to deal with officers who are stranded outside of those doors. How is that handled? Do you have drills on that? Do you have set instructions on that?

SUND: Again, that's something I would look for the onsite official, the onsite incident commander to provide those officers with directions where to relocate to.

MERKLEY: OK. Let me put it this way. Have you ever held a drill to respond to this situation where a crowd pushes past the exterior barricades?

SUND: Not this level of situation, no, Sir.

MERKLEY: To what level have you had such drills?

SUND: We've done various exercises with people, you know, activities on the grounds during civil disobedience training, how to handle rightist groups.

MERKLEY: OK. Thank you. I'm going to turn just seconds left to our former Sergeant of Arms for the Senate, Mr. Stenger. At the time that the -- we were in the Senate chamber and the protesters, the rioters reached the perimeter of the Senate, there was a very quick rush to try to lock the doors and there's -- there were people searching for how do you lock these. And there's many entrances on the balcony. Have there ever been any sort of a drill with the Sergeant of Arms team or with in partnership with Capitol Police on how to secure the doors to the chamber as a last point of defense?

[12:40:36]

MICHAEL STENGER, FORMER SENATE SERGEANT AT ARMS: Yes, Sir. At least once a year, they hold the chamber action drill, where they would work together with the Capitol Police with the door keepers and do a lockdown. So they know how to -- when they should lockdown and when we should do it.

MERKLEY: So that is done as an actual drill where people have to run, get the keys, lock the doors, they know what doors are supposed to guard, are they supposed to guard them from the inside or from the outside and so forth?

STENGER: Yes, Sir.

MERKLEY: And when was the last such drill of that nature conducted?

STENGER: I'd have to go back and check, whether they're trying to do it once a year.

MERKLEY: OK. I think I'm out of time. And I thank you very much to the Chairman.

SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Thank you, Senator. Senator Scott, you're recognized.

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Thank you, Chairman.

First off, I want to thank everybody for your hard work. The -- we have National Guards, National Guard up here. We've had him I guess since around the 6th. Can you all tell us how you made the decision to bring the National Guard here each of you to the extent you're involved there, if you're not involved, how the decision was made? The National Guard presence we have here now. I ask the result of the riot with the National Guard has put up the fencing and all that.

SUND: OK. So that was -- that began to be developed the evening of the 6th. When we made the request, we got the National Guard in, we started looking to the future, what was going to be next, we started talking about bringing in the first section of global fencing, which basically went right around Capitol Square, which is constitution independence first, first. We got that that in place. Then we started looking at what necessary National Guard resources working with the National Guard representative. So that was developed with Capitol Police, working with, you know, I believe Sergeant at Arms at the time in the evening going into the 7th that we developed that.

SCOTT: OK. Were you the only one involved? Were they Sergeant at Arms involved?

SUND: I believe so. I'd have to go back and pull that information. We were working on number of different aspects of it at the time. But I had my general counsel as well as our operations people working on the request in the coordination with the National Guard.

SCOTT: And what was the purpose of the original, the National Guard that came put up the fencing, what was the rationale? What was the threat assessment?

SUND: So when -- just to make sure I understand. You're talking about the National Guard that came on the 6th?

SCOTT: No, the presents that stayed after?

SUND: Oh, the one that stayed after. So what was the threat?

SCOTT: What was the threat assessment? And why was it set up that they would be here for, you know, it seems like now months on end? SUND: Well, again, beyond, you know, the 8th, again, you know, my departure date was the 8th. So the information I have is up until the 8th. It was based they were putting him in place based on the mass insurrection that we had on the 6th. I wasn't aware of any additional intelligence at that point. They were just concerned about possible violent extremist regrouping and staging another attack on the Capitol.

SCOTT: So you haven't seen anything that would give us a threat assessment now that we have a concern that we need to have the National Guard presence. This mean there's not but you haven't seen anything?

SUND: No, Sir. I've been really not in that environment since the 8th.

SCOTT: OK. Anybody else that's -- any of the others that are here to testify, do you have any threat assessment you've seen that there's a reason that we have the National Guard here today? Does everybody -- is that no from everybody? No one has any idea why we have the National Guard here?

ROBERT CONTEE, ACTING CHIEF, DC METROPOLITAN POLICE: This is Chief Contee. Yes. My guess is in response to all the things that that have happened, but to your questions specifically about specific intelligence, I have not personally seen anything that suggests that.

SCOTT: And are you involved in the decision all of why the National Guard is here?

CONTEE: No, Sir. I'm not.

SCOTT: And you -- they would -- they've not shared any threat assessment with you at all with regard to why the National Guard is here?

CONTEE: That has not been shared with me, no.

SCOTT: Does that surprise you?

[12:45:00]

CONTEE: I can't say that I'm really surprised. Quite frankly, we have talked about the -- we have talked about, you know, intelligence in terms of, you know, what we expect to see in the city. There are several law enforcement calls that take place between the Metropolitan Police Department and other federal partners.

But, again, the Capitol Police in that structure there is something that, you know, they're not beholden to the mayor of the District of Columbia or anything like that. So we exchanged information that we have. But, again, I just have not seen anything specifically from them that suggest the fence still being the way that it is now.

And I should add, also, Sir, that I mean, obviously, I think that there needs to be a reimagining of the security posture there something certainly shouldn't be there. But I'm not exactly sure if the answer to that is reservoir and the deployment that we currently see.

SCOTT: And the former Sergeant of Arms, you don't have any reason, no one's given you any, you've not seen any information that would suggest that we have a threat, an imminent threat that we need the National Guard here?

STENGER: I have not.

PAUL IRVING, FORMER HOUSE SERGEANT AT ARMS: And I have not either. I same resign on the 7th and have been gone since, so I have no information.

SCOTT: OK. So who would be making the decision that the national Guards needs to be here then? And where would the threat assessment come from? Does anybody know?

SUND: And maybe look at the current leadership over maybe the Capitol Police in conjunction with the current Sergeant at Arms.

SCOTT: OK. So it'd be the Capitol -- head of Capitol Police and the city and the acting Sergeant at Arms.

SUND: That is correct, for -- to give you the current information on that.

SCOTT: And would they coordinate with the Metropolitan Police?

SUND: Well, if there was intelligence that would indicate the need for such activity, it would usually be shared with our partner. Our local law enforcement would share our perimeter and our borders.

SCOTT: And if there was a threat out there, would that be public -- would there be some public information that they would put out normally?

SUND: Again, that all has to do with the nature of the threat, the threat, the classification level of the threat. But, again, that would be shared with law enforcement within the District of Columbia, through the Joint -- JTTF as well as the Executive Board for the JTTF?

SCOTT: I mean, I'm just, I'm flabbergasted that not that you don't know now, but that there's no public information about why we have all these National Guard's here? I mean, does that surprise you?

SUND: It's a significant security deployment. Again, I believe it's based on the facts of what they've seen, you know, hindsight being what it is. It's the facts of what occurred on January 6th, this unprecedented insurrection.

SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

PETERS: Thank you, Senator. Senator Hassan, you're recognized for your questions.

SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): Thank you, Mr. Chair and thanks to all of the witnesses for being here today. I especially want to take a moment to acknowledge the heroism of the officers of the U.S. Capitol Police, law enforcement, and other employees of the Capitol who bravely worked to protect our democracy on January 6th, and who have done so much work to restore our Capitol since that day. I also want to thank all of the families of our law enforcement and Capitol Hill staff for what they went through watching this unfold in real time.

I want to start with a question to Chief Contee, if I could. Chief, Washington D.C. is obviously no stranger to large assemblies and protests. So what is the standard process for protests in Washington D.C. when it comes to interagency coordination and information sharing? And following the events of January 6th, what recommendations do you have for improving coordination and information sharing?

CONTEE: Thank you for the question. There are several discussions, meetings that take place between the Municipal Police Department as well as our federal partners. We oftentimes have coordination calls with the National Park Service simply because in a lot of the federal lands, they authorize the permits for the federal lands. So there's coordination that has to happen there between the Metropolitan Police Department, on U.S. Park Police, U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Secret Service. With respect to the intelligence, again, you know, partners from the FBI, they're often a part of those -- are part of those discussions.

[12:50:00]

I think that the team kind of going forward that certainly needs to be looked at with respect to specific intelligence that has been outlined throughout some of the testimony today, when there is specific information that warrants us to perhaps posture differently, our notification system needs to be different. The JTTF distribution list that we have is not something that is a monitored list 24 hours a day, seven days a week that would generate an immediate response to that.

When those communications are sent out, there are staff members who at some point will get to that information. But I think that, again, that hasn't been laid out, you know, when we're talking about something of this magnitude that could potentially happen and ultimately did happen in our city. It should posture us to move differently, perhaps with convenient phone calls, you know, immediately and not, you know, counting on an e-mail or something making it through the chain, to the levels that it needs to make, you know, for other decisions to be made.

HASSAN: Well, thank you for that answer. One of the things I would observe is sometimes ahead of events like this just scheduling ongoing check-ins with leadership at all of the agencies that need to coordinate can have the effective sharing information in real time.

I want to move to a question to Mr. Stenger, Mr. Irving, and Mr. Sund, the Secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to designate events with national and international significance as national special security events. But that didn't happen for January 6th, even given the threat information readily available ahead of time. Designated events are eligible for expanded federal support related to security of the events. So prior to January 6th, did anyone from the Department of Homeland Security contact you about a potential national special security event designation? And we'll start with the Mr. Sund and then move to the others.

SUND: Thank you, Ma'am. No, I'm not aware of anybody from DHS reaching out and requesting, you know, if we want to follow up with this, it want to be a national special security event, or if we were going to request that to be or if they were going to identify and designate what they call a serious special event rating to the event. No, I'm not aware.

HASSAN: Thank you. Mr. Stenger and Mr. Irving.

STENGER: No one contacted me.

IRVING: And the state with me, Senator, no contact with me or my office.

HASSAN: Well, thank you for those answers. I look forward to following up with the Department of Homeland Security about this during the next hearing on this topic.

Mr. Sund, my last question. The officers of the Capitol Police work each and every day to keep the U.S. Capitol safe and secure. We are all grateful for the brave work of the U.S. Capitol Police officers on January 6th. Tragically, the law enforcement community has now lost two officers to suicide since January 6th, as a result of the insurrection and the events then. My thoughts and I'm sure the thoughts of all of us here today are with the families of MPD Officer Jeffrey Smith and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Livengood. Mr. Sund, what mental health resources are currently available to the United States Capitol Police officers? And are these resources sufficient?

SUND: The Department has brought in significant mental health resources. And I certainly do appreciate your recognition of that. I've talked to a number of officers who have definitely gone through the battle and feel that they're feeling a lot of trauma for it. But I know the Chief of Police, the Acting Chief has brought in a significant resources. We had employee assistance program. But they brought in a number of outside contractors that have very -- that have gotten very good response. So I think there's a lot of mental health resources available. And I know a number of officers are taken advantage of it, which I'm happy to see.

HASSAN: Well, so my and I would encourage all officers who feel that they could benefit from counseling to reach out for it. And I would certainly encourage and I'm sure my colleagues here would to that all leadership in law enforcement, reach out to us if they feel the resources are strained or need bolstering in some way.

Thank you all for your service, thank you very much for your testimony and for being here today, to the Chair and Ranking Members of our respective committees, Thank you so much for organizing this hearing.

PETERS: Thank you Senator Hassan. The Chair now recognizes Senator Hawley for his questions.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY, (R-MO): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by saying a special thank you and a special acknowledgement to Captain Mendoza, who shared her testimony earlier today, earlier this morning. Captain Mendoza is a native of Missouri and an alumna of Park University if memory serves, and I just want to say to her, I want to thank her for being here today, but also for her incredible bravery and courage on January 6th. And on behalf of the entire state of Missouri, I want to say thank you for what you have done. Thank you for what you represent.

[12:55:23]

And I also want to take that opportunity to say, again, now, as I said, on the night of that terrible day, a thank you to all of the law enforcement, from all of our various branches who've responded in this dire emergency to face these criminal rioters, these violent criminals to repulse them from the Capitol and to secure this space so that the work of Congress could continue. So thank you. And a special thanks to Captain Mendoza, from the state of Missouri.

Mr. Sund, if I could just return to the question about the National Guard activation. I just -- I'm a little bit confused about the timeline here. And I want to ask you and Mr. Irving some questions just so I can get this clear in my own head. I'm looking at your written testimony. You testified that you spoke with Mr. Irving at 1:09, actually both of the Sergeant at Arms at 1:09 p.m. And I understand there's a little bit of dispute about the timeline here. But you do say that Mr. Irving advised you that he needed to run it, namely the request for the National Guard, he needed to run it up the chain of command, if I got that right.

SUND: That is correct, Sir.

HAWLEY: OK. Mr. Irving, can I just ask you when Mr. Sund says that you told him you needed to run it up the chain of command, to whom were you referring there?

IRVING: Senator, I do not recall a phone call at 1:09 when I was on the floor on the House during the Electoral College session. My phone records do not reflect a telephone call at that timeline. And had I received a call at that time, I had everyone with me. I hadn't Mr. Stenger, the leadership, we would have approved it immediately. So I have no recollection of that call and neither do I have a record of it.

HAWLEY: You say I think that you spoke with Mr. Sund later at approximately 1:30. Is that right?

IRVING: That that is correct after I left the floor. And on that call, he had indicated to me that conditions were deteriorating and that he might be making a request at a later time.

HAWLEY: OK. And you -- did you didn't say that you needed to run it up the chain of command or words to that effect? IRVING: No, not to my recollection. I notified leadership and I went to Michael Stenger's office to receive updates from Mr. Sund as to conditions outside and to determine whether he needed to make a request or not and when the request was made, shortly after to, we approved it.

HAWLEY: And when you say we, who's we, we approved it?

IRVING: I was in Michael Stenger's office, so next to Mr. Stenger.

HAWLEY: So you did not consult congressional leadership. You weren't waiting at any point for input from congressional leadership is that your testimony, Mr. Irving, if I got that, right?

IRVING: Yes, I advise them as we would do with many security protocols.

HAWLEY: But you weren't waiting for them at any point. There was no delay you're saying and getting National Guard requests, because you didn't at any point actually wait for the input of the speaker or the majority leader or anybody else?

IRVING: No, absolutely not.

HAWLEY: Mr. Sund, is that your recollection?

SUND: My recollection was at 1:09 while I was sitting in the command center watching things rapidly deteriorate, I made a phone call, a phone call was made in the presence of I believe both my assistant chiefs and possibly my general counsel, at which time I made the initial request that we need to activate the National Guard. The situation is bad on the west front. I followed up at 1:22 to check on the status of the request.

HAWLEY: OK. One of the things I'm trying to get clear on here is who would constitute the chain of command. Now it sounds like Mr. Irving is saying that he actually never made that statement. And he didn't consult anybody else. I mean, my understanding is from the statute to USC Chapter 29 Section 1970 that in an emergency situation, I would think that this would qualify, that the Capitol Police Board does not have to consult with members of the Senate or House leadership in order to make a request for deployment of the National Guard or request of other executive departments and executive agencies.

So it would seem strange to me that there was any talk about a chain of command that would involve anybody other than the Capitol Police Board given the statute. But it seems -- there seems to be some confusion about the basic facts and who asked for what when. Let me just ask you this, Mr. Sund. On Monday, January the 4th, you testified that you approached the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms to request the assistance of the National Guard. And Mr. Irving stated that he was concerned about the optics of having the guard deployed. Is that right? Am I remembering that correctly?

[13:00:06]