Ex-Capitol Police Chief Faults Intelligence Officials and Military in Jan. 6 Attack

WASHINGTON — In a brand new e book, the previous chief of the Capitol Police ranges blistering criticism at federal intelligence officers who failed to boost alarms earlier than the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and a navy paperwork that waited hours to reply as soon as the siege was underway.

Steven A. Sund, who was the Capitol Police chief through the 2021 riot, writes in his e book, “Braveness Below Hearth,” that intelligence within the possession of the F.B.I., the Homeland Safety Division and the Protection Division ought to have had these companies “seeing crimson,” however they as a substitute did not warn the Capitol Police.

Including to Mr. Sund’s frustration, he says, he was met with a collection of delays as he pleaded with the navy to deploy the Nationwide Guard to the Capitol.

“I respect the navy. I come from a navy household,” Mr. Sund mentioned in an interview about his e book. “The folks within the discipline, these which are keen to the inform the reality, I extremely respect. The folks that determined to not ship assist to my women and men after we wanted that assist badly — I can’t even perceive why they didn’t ship assist.”

Mr. Sund’s e book, launched on Tuesday, almost two years after the bloody assault on the Capitol, accommodates a prolonged minute-by-minute recounting of the chaos that day. He spreads round blame for the assault.

He says within the e book that former President Donald J. Trump behaved irresponsibly when he fired up a crowd, directed it to the Capitol and watched the violence for hours with out making an attempt to intervene. Mr. Sund additionally faults safety on Capitol Hill for changing into politicized.

(All three high Capitol safety officers resigned below stress after the breach of the Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to as for Mr. Sund’s resignation throughout a information convention after the assault.)

Mr. Sund says he blames some high officers within the Capitol Police pressure who labored with him for among the safety failures, however he additionally takes duty.

He says that looking back he ought to have pushed more durable, days earlier than the assault, to steer the Nationwide Guard to deploy to the Capitol, despite the fact that he believes a lot of probably the most damning intelligence by no means made its option to his desk. He additionally says he needs he had been extra concerned in speaking together with his officers through the assault.

“I ought to have identified there could be a breakdown in communications,” he mentioned within the interview. “The officers have been calling out for assist, and there was nobody there to assist them.”

However Mr. Sund saves his most intense criticism for folks he as soon as considered as his regulation enforcement companions.

He accuses the Division of Homeland Safety and the intelligence group of “watering down” their experiences concerning the potential for violence on Jan. 6. “There have been folks clearly calling for storming the Capitol,” Mr. Sund mentioned. “D.H.S. didn’t put out a bulletin. D.H.S. didn’t even put out a warning.”

And he says the Pentagon was extra involved about “optics” than shortly deploying the Nationwide Guard through the assault.

“I received on a name with the Pentagon and pleaded for the Nationwide Guard,” he mentioned. “There was delay after delay after delay.”

“I now imagine they knew it was coming,” Mr. Sund mentioned, including that the navy brass put “restrictions on the very help that was wanted.”

Mr. Sund’s account is in step with the testimony of Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, who was the commander of the District of Columbia Nationwide Guard and mentioned the response was delayed due to issues from higher-ups over “the optics” of the Military’s involvement.

The inaction, Normal Walker informed the Home committee investigating the assault, was as a result of “someone or somebodies have been willfully, intentionally delaying making the choice.”

The panel examined the problem of the Guard delay and concluded that some on the Pentagon had “real issues” that “President Trump would possibly give an unlawful order to make use of the navy in assist of his efforts to overturn the election” and that these issues contributed to a reluctance to deploy troops.

Different safety officers have taken difficulty with a few of Mr. Sund’s accounts.

Julie Farnam, the assistant director of the Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division of the Capitol Police, mentioned on Twitter that a few of Mr. Sund’s statements about his interactions with division intelligence officers have been false or deceptive.

She wrote that she blamed Mr. Sund for not making higher use of the intelligence that officers had shared with him that indicated Congress could possibly be focused by armed protesters.

The violence of Jan. 6 “was not an intelligence failure,” she wrote in a public Twitter message to Mr. Sund. “There was ample intelligence offered beforehand obligatory to organize appropriately. You didn’t.”