Expert: Trump’s ‘wild’ tweet sparked ‘exponential rise’ in violent threats before Capitol riot
A Homeland Security official who "sounded every alarm button he could" prior to the Capitol insurrection says it was the involvement of armed militias – as well as groups that don't typically work together — which led him to believe that the threat of a "mass fatality incident" on Jan. 6 was very real.
"Not only were we seeing groups converging or saying they were going to converge into D.C., we were seeing these unholy alliances between groups that generally don't really exist in the same space, very single-issue groups that don't really converse with each other," said Donell Harvin, who served as head of intelligence in D.C.'s homeland security office. "So it was very dangerous, particular when you talk about the armed militias."
Harvin told the Washington Post, in a video interview published Tuesday, that the threats began to escalate after former president Donald Trump tweeted on the Saturday before Christmas, "Be there, be wild."
"After the tweet, we saw an exponential rise not only in the number of individuals who were looking to come to D.C. to demonstrate, but also the talk of violence," Harvin said. "We saw many of what we call posts of concern with threatening information. And as we got close and closer we saw them sharing information, tactics, techniques and procedures that would lend themselves to essentially an attack."
Asked why he took the threats seriously, Harvin said: "Quite frankly it's the actors. These armed militia are serious players. Their capabilities are not to be doubted. They're well trained, they're well organized. Many of them have former law enforcement or military background. These are groups that we had never seen come to the District of Columbia. We know they're out there, we monitor them, but they're not really our concern, because they don't really impact our area of responsibility."
A week prior to the insurrection, an analyst working under Harvin effectively predicted the insurrection.
"Our lead analyst created a picture in which there were multitudes more people than expected, many of them were armed and sequestering weapons, and as a diversionary tactic two improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were placed near the Capitol to draw law enforcement out to cut their numbers in half," he said. "This was predicted by this analyst a week before it actually happened."
According to an investigation published by the Post on Sunday, Harvin responding by initiating a conference call between Homeland Security officials across the country. Then, "Forty-eight hours before the attack, Harvin began pressing every alarm button he could. He invited the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, military intelligence services and other agencies to see the information in real time as his team collected it. He took another extreme step: He asked the city's health department to convene a call of D.C.-area hospitals and urged them to prepare for a mass casualty event. Empty your emergency rooms, he said, and stock up your blood banks."
According to the Post, "Harvin was one of numerous people inside and outside of government who alerted authorities to the growing likelihood of deadly violence on Jan. 6, according to a Washington Post investigation, which found a cascade of previously undisclosed warnings preceded the attack on the Capitol."
"While the U.S. government has been consumed with heading off future terrorist plots since 9/11, its agencies failed to effectively harness the security and intelligence infrastructure built in the wake of that assault by Islamic extremists to look inward at domestic threats," the newspaper reported. "Intelligence officials certainly never envisioned a mass attack against the government incited by the sitting president."
Read more here and watch the full interview below.
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