“Why did the division resolve to watch the … counterdemonstrators however apparently, in response to this timeline, to not monitor the Proud Boys?
“Why did the division resolve to watch the … counterdemonstrators however apparently, in response to this timeline, to not monitor the Proud Boys?” Lofgren requested Bolton. “What occurred to those 200 Proud Boys over the course of the day?”
Bolton mentioned he didn’t have the reply to Lofgren’s questions, however mentioned he hoped to have solutions after his subsequent report.
“Now we have the identical sort of considerations,” Bolton mentioned.
He additionally questioned the timeline’s accuracy and mentioned these questions had been a part of why he moved up a report on command and management and radio site visitors to June from later this summer season.
A spokesperson for Capitol Police instructed POLITICO that the division did have “countersurveillance groups … reporting on the Proud Boys” and that its intelligence operations staff did get details about the lots of of Proud Boys from the Metropolitan Police Division.
“USCP pushed that info out to the intelligence distribution,” the spokesperson mentioned. “The division was looking out for any and all potential threats on January 6.”
Proof filed by the Justice Division suggests coordination between teams just like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, an anti-government militia community, forward of then-President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally. In a debate in September, when requested to sentence white supremacists, Trump referred to as on the Proud Boys, a self-described “Western chauvinist” group, to “stand again” and “stand by.”
The division’s highest-ranking on-the-ground commander, Eric Waldow, urged officers to look out for anti-Trump demonstrators among the many sprawling pro-Trump crowd, POLITICO beforehand reported. Lawmakers have expressed fears that the division didn’t take significantly sufficient the risk that pro-Trump extremists posed to Congress.
Bolton issued a report in April that discovered the division’s unit for responding to violent protests is antiquated sufficient that officers “actively discover methods to avoid getting assigned there.”
Bolton additionally mentioned on Monday that the division didn’t “adequately” put out steering for countersurveillance and risk evaluation, and had communications procedures that might have “led to essential countersurveillance info not being appropriately communicated” within the division.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.