National security analyst Malcolm Nance said the administration of the United States Capitol Police needs to be fired and the officers involved should be investigated for potential complicity in Wednesday’s insurrection.
In comparison to the Black Lives Matter protesters in DC over the summer, the rebels exercised “the final privilege of whites,” he says.
“I saw a national security disaster unfold and turn into a national security catastrophe,” he says. “I monitor right-wing extremist chat groups, their Telegram channels, their private Internet forums. And we’ve seen that happen a long time ago. “
The police response to pro-Trump extremists was “an abject failure,” says Nance. There are 2,200 police officers on the Capitol Police team, making it the ninth largest police force in the country, he says.
“They were unable to respond on their own because they thought the protesters were on their side,” he says.
Interview highlights
About what Nance saw from a national security perspective
“As you recall, a few months ago, there was a plot revealed by US prosecutors against six men in Michigan who planned to kidnap and prosecute and execute Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. Plan B for that group was to catch 200 men, invade the Statehouse, bring out all the Democrats and Liberals, or as they designate, people at the Statehouse, try them and execute them by shooting or hanging them at the Statehouse. That workable plan was the first thing I thought of when I was monitoring your live streams [Wednesday] and saw them walk away from the Mall and head towards the Capitol. I said, ‘This is going to become a bad thing’. “
In the Capitol Police being unprepared
“I have to compare that to the protests that we saw, the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, DC, this summer, and it’s very simple. This summer, all government resources were mobilized to protect the White House and stand up to Black Lives Matter protesters because they were under the explicit orders of Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr to bring all the resources from the United States. state federal. They brought in disturbance response teams from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. They use the National Guard with a protected symbol and, in fact, brought the National Guard from three other states. And they used them as an iron fist in these protesters.
“In this one, because it was after a speech President Trump attended, they saw it, I suspect, that these protesters were about to exercise what I could only identify as the final privilege of whites. They were seen as law enforcement allies when they arrived on the west side of the Capitol, it was an open war with law enforcement. But those who went to the east side and finally entered the building, they were almost cooperating with them as if they were an extremely large group of high school tourists. It was a total breakdown of the responsibilities of the Capitol Police and their protocols. Everyone in the management of that organization must be fired and then all officers must be investigated to see if they have been complicit in this. “
About Vice President Mike Pence approving the order to deploy the National Guard instead of Trump
“This is the real reason why we saw any response and why we made the President of the United States apparently report that he did not want the DC National Guard to mobilize through the Department of Justice. The reason for any response is because Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, the new vice president and special security force for Nancy Pelosi, who is part of the Capitol Police, made an emergency call for an immediate response from the federal agencies that the vice president was under immediate and imminent threat. That’s why the FBI’s attack teams moved, that’s why other police forces mobilized. But they didn’t call the Metropolitan Police Department, which has jurisdiction for all other parts of the city except Capitol Hill. And it was the FBI and Secret Service that actually evacuated that building with the help of some elements of the Capitol’s emergency response forces, a total failure.
“It was Mike Pence who launched his Secret Service forces, called on the state of Virginia to send military police from the National Guard, and only later did the Justice Department give authority to the Washington, DC police to mobilize all 1,200 National Guard members. , and then the mayor was given cooperative authority to allow the Metropolitan Police Department to respond and actually secure the Capitol. “
About how preparation for the pro-Trump protest should have been handled from the start
“It should have been an integrated network of all security forces brought in to support all the disparate operations that were taking place – the most important of which was that you were in a joint session of Congress. All members of the House of Representatives and all members of the United States Senate were in a room. This in itself should have constituted a threat to national security, which means that all the resources of the United States government should be in place exactly as they were for the State of the Union. The only thing that was missing was the President of the United States. . So why they failed in this is beyond me.
“But more importantly, it was considered a routine day for Mike Pence going to the golf course instead of having a complete integration of all security forces with an FBI national security room ready for all resources to respond by the police from the park, DC to police, reinforced SWAT units and channeled protesters further to Union Station and away from the Capitol. I think Donald Trump was very pleased with that response, which is why we are not hearing anything from them. And he was tasked with the security details of the vice presidents in order to guarantee the entire operation for the Capitol. It’s a shame. “
What he expects from the investigation going forward
“I’m not being irreverent when I say that ISIS is furious that they never had this idea of entering through a mass protest, barricading hostages and executing everyone inside the building because it was feasible [on Wednesday]. And I don’t know if people who had five firearms or the snare that was set up outside the Capitol, if they intended to have a murder cell there, which would be completely and totally independent of the protesters, come into that building, besiege it and start killing people.
“Each person in management has failed. All the people in that part of the Capitol police force who let in protesters, who did not guard the building, failed. There is now a model for taking over the United States Capitol building. All you need is a mass protest from people who look like anyone other than Black Lives Matter and antifa, and you can just take control of a state building. It has happened before. And I think that in many parliaments across the country, they fear that it will happen again soon. “
Julia Corcoran produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Allison Hagan and Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.