Refuting numerous claims by the Trump administration, The Washington Post is reporting that the FBI had advance information that some in attendance at last Wednesday’s rally promoted by Donald Trump were planning violence against members of congress and possibly Vice-President Mike Pence at the Capitol building.
According to the report, some of the armed, pro-Trump mob in fact shared their plans to attack the U.S. Capitol.
The FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia reported on those plans, based on communications between extremists. Officials at the FBI’s head office were briefed on those dangers on Tuesday, one day before the attempted coup.
One such call for violence went like this: “Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa [sic] slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”
Members of the insurrectionist group also shared maps of the inside of the Capitol, as well as the tunnels underneath the building that members of congress could potentially use to escape.
In a shocking revelation on Tuesday, Rep. Mikie Sherrill revealed that some House members were giving tours of the building the day before the attacks, calling the tours “reconnaissance.”
In a Facebook Live video Tuesday, in which she vowed to hold those involved responsible, Sherill said:
“We can’t have a democracy if members of Congress are actively helping the president overturn the elections results. And so not only do I intend to see that the president is removed and never runs for office again and doesn’t have access to classified material, I also intend to see that those members of Congress who abetted him, those members of Congress who had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw on Jan. 5 – a reconnaissance for the next day, those members of Congress that incited this violent crowd, those members of Congress that attempted to help our president undermine our democracy, I’m going to see they are held accountable, and if necessary, ensure that they don’t serve in Congress.”
House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D. SC) on Sunday said that he believes last Wednesday’s Capitol rioters may have had inside information, because they somehow found his office despite there being no sign on the door indicating it is his.
Based of new information that there were “reconnaissance” tours being given by congress members the day before the attack, Clyburn could be correct in being suspicious.
“I have an unmarked office that you have got to know exactly where it is”, Clyburn said.
Clyburn added that he spends “most of his time” in that office instead of his second one, which is marked as his.
“They didn’t go to where my name was. They went where I usually hang out. That to me indicates that something untoward may have been going on.”
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Clyburn had previously told CBS News that he believed there were people in the Capitol building who were “complicit” in helping the armed, pro-Trump mob.
“They knew where to go. I’ve been told … by some other Congress people that their staff are saying that they saw people being allowed into the building through side doors. Who opened those side doors for these protesters, or I call them these mobsters, to come into the building, not through the main entrance where magnetometers are but through side doors? Yes, somebody on the inside of those buildings were complicit in this.”
Clyburn also noted that something felt “amiss” when he came to work at the Capitol Wednesday to start the process of certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory:
“There were no security people on the steps. They were all out in a place which I thought gave low security.”
