WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ohio Sen. Rob Portman helped write the first in-depth investigation of what went wrong at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
What You Need To Know
- 128-page bipartisan report examines security failures as attack happened
- Ohio Sen. Rob Portman helped write it as the top Republican on a key committee
- The report does not go into former President Donald Trump’s role
- Portman said Capitol Police officers “weren’t given the tools they needed to do the job”
The 128-page bipartisan investigation, which was released Tuesday, details how a lack of planning, the failure of some agencies to share warnings of potential violence, and poor communication all led to the deadly insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Portman, who serves as the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, helped lead the investigation.
“We were so poorly prepared,” Portman told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday.
The report found U.S. Capitol Police did not fully act on intelligence about potential threats and that the police had no operational plan in place leading up to the day Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win.
The investigation also found that most police officers lacked effective training and equipment, and the report notes that no one could explain why the D.C. National Guard took nearly three hours to deploy.
“Our police officers just weren’t given the tools they needed to do the job and that makes me very upset,” Portman said Tuesday.
The report includes more than 20 recommendations by members of the Senate Homeland Security and Senate Rules committees, including allowing the Capitol Police chief to request National Guard support in emergencies, improving training, equipment, intelligence collection and operational planning, and evaluating how threats on social media are handled and shared.
But the investigation did not examine the root causes of the attack, including what, if any, role former President Donald Trump played by speaking outside the White House before the attack and pushing the debunked claim that the election was stolen from him.
Portman argued that’s a separate matter.
He said he supports creating a nonpartisan, 9/11-style commission to investigate what motivated the attack — something he recently voted to begin debate on, but the proposal did not get enough Republican support in the Senate to advance.
“I do think it’s important to lay out what happened that day because a lot of people don’t know and there’s a lot of confusion out there about what happened that day,” Portman said Tuesday.
The two Senate committees behind the report said several agencies did not cooperate with the investigation, so parts of the probe will continue.
Congress is still debating whether that 9/11-style commission, or a select committee, may be formed.
So far, at least 24 Ohioans have been charged in connection with the insurrection.
