House Select Committee investigator Tim Heaphy said that the new book about Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) reveals more about what Donald Trump and his administration knew about Jan. 6 being violent and extremists being armed than was previously known.
Excerpts of a new book were published by the Atlantic Wednesday with bombshell revelations about January 6. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) was told by a high-ranking Pentagon official that violence was coming on Jan. 6.
After speaking to King, Romney reached out to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
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“In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th," the text message read. "There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator — the President — is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.”
The report says, "McConnell never responds."
While the book focuses on Romney, it also makes the first public connection between the Trump administration and a member of Congress about knowledge of Jan. 6 prior to the attack.
When speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday about the story, Heaphy said the committee never heard that information. He said, however, that the information was not something they hadn't heard from a number of other law enforcement branches about threats.
"There was ample open source intelligence about threats of violence and about people coming to Washington — openly talking about carrying weapons and talking about revolution and that was known to law enforcement," Heaphy said. "That was known by Capitol Police and to federal authorities and it wasn't operational. it did not inform a more secure perimeter. We laid it out in the report and I want to make it clear none of that excuses the actions of the president's former coconspirators, but they exploited a weakness of underestimating the threats of violence."
Heaphy's claim of underestimating the violence flies in the face of the Pentagon official who reportedly told Angus King that violence was coming and that they were specifically looking to Romney. Not only did someone at the Pentagon have the information, but they thought it important enough to give to a senator to warn Romney, according to reports.
"This seems extraordinarily specific though," Wallace said to Heaphy. "And this is based on a call Romney receives from Angus King. It seems like specific information that the Pentagon possessed. Concerns from the Pentagon that the president is the one who commands the reinforcements. Is this why the National Guard wasn't in position to help at the Capitol?"
Heaphy said he didn't think so, explaining it would have been something called for by the Secretary of the Army and would be there if the Capitol police needed.
"So, again, I do think that when you have military intelligence and law enforcement all gathering information suggesting the possibility of violence and tying that to the rhetoric, there is a lot of intelligence online that people were coming because the president wanted them to," Heaphy continued. "He is summoning us [in the] 'will be wild,' tweet. All of that is consistent. We should look hard at how we share and how we operationalize that type of intelligence."
Wallace pressed again: "You are saying where Romney writes to McConnell 'I hope sufficient security plans are in place but I am concerned that the instigator, the president is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.' You are saying that your investigation bore out that it is actually Pence and Pelosi who end up on the phone with Milley and Miller in the Pentagon. I remember some of those transcripts in the final report."
Heaphy confirmed that none of those conversations took place prior to Jan. 6 with the Pentagon with Pelosi and Pence. "They could have been deployed, pre-positioned in advance. You could argue they should be more forcefully deployed and easy in hindsight to say that. But what is clear from that text suggests that the president is the instigator that law enforcement was seeing in advance is not just talking about the rally but a rally the president's rhetoric is stoking. Again consistent with our report."
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