New internal Department of Justice emails obtained by Buzzfeed News reveal that the DOJ was told that there was "no credible threat" to security at the United States Capitol just hours before Trump supporters rioted in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
In an email sent at 10:43 a.m. on January 6th, a member of the DOJ's National Security Division informed top DOJ officials that "there are no credible threats as of the 10:00 brief."
Less than three hours later, Trump supporters would be storming the Capitol.
This email was part of a large cache of emails obtained by Buzzfeed related to the DOJ's handling of the Capitol riots.
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Many emails have been been heavily redacted, however, which has limited the scope of what the publication was able to learn about them.
What the emails do consistently show, however, is that government officials severely underestimated the possibility that violence would break out on January 6th.
"On the afternoon of Jan. 5, Rosen exchanged emails with a public affairs official about how to respond to a letter that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser had written to Rosen — and tweeted out — stating that the city wasn't asking for more federal law enforcement and discouraging more deployments without local consultation," the publication writes. "Most of the contents of those emails are redacted."
