Sandy MaloneWashington, DC – Retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honoré submitted his final report on U.S. Capitol security to Congress last Monday and it said the Capitol Police were totally unprepared for a future attack.
The report, which was commissioned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, has faced skepticism from Republicans who pointed out that Honoré has made multiple biased and partisan statements surrounding the riot and the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) force.
Honoré began blasting Capitol Police officers for being “complicit” in the Capitol riot just a few days after the attack on the building.
“I think once this all gets uncovered, it was complicit actions by Capitol Police,” Honoré told MSNBC.
He said officials needed to investigate whether former USCP Chief Steven Sund “was … complicit along with the sergeant at arms in the House and the Senate.”
“It gives appearance of complicity,” Honoré told MSNBC.
The general said Chief Sund and the sergeants-at-arms of the House and Senate may have “complied because he might have thought 45 was coming to the Capitol and he gave way to the protesters,” meaning security officials might have thought President Donald Trump was coming to the Capitol.
Honoré said he had “just never seen such incompetence, so they’re either that stupid or ignorant or complicit.”
“I think they were complicit,” he said.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) said on Sunday that he was skeptical of the findings in the report because of Honoré’s involvement, NBC News reported.
“While there may be some worthy recommendations forthcoming, General Honoré’s notorious partisan bias calls into question the rationality of appointing him to lead this important security review,” McCarthy said. “It also raises the unacceptable possibility that the Speaker desired a certain result: turning the Capitol into a fortress.”
General Honoré is an extreme partisan and should be the LAST person to head up an investigation of what happened at the Capitol on Jan 6th.
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) February 18, 2021
Honoré was scheduled to brief lawmakers in three separate sessions on March 8, according to NBC News.
His report, released to release to the media on Monday morning, determined that the police force tasked with protecting the U.S. Capitol complex is woefully ill-equipped to handle the “volume and nature” of the threats directed at the lawmakers and the U.S. Capitol building.
Many of the threats to the U.S. Capitol complex came from “domestic elements,” according to the report.
“The USCP is not postured to track, assess, plan against, or respond to this plethora of threats due to significant capacity shortfalls, inadequate training, immature processes, and an operating culture that is not intelligence-driven,” the security report read, according to NBC News.
Honoré’s report said the Capitol Police needed to immediately fill its current 233 job openings.
The task force evaluating Capitol security also recommended that USCP beef up staffing and improve their own intelligence-gathering operations, NBC News reported.
The report called for the addition of 874 positions “to fill assessed capability gaps, which includes intelligence specialists, operational planners, supervisors, Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU) personnel and trainers, and dignitary protection agents, to name just a few.”
The task force recommended the creation of a permanent DC-area quick reaction force, NBC News reported.
It also recommended a compromise to the ongoing battle over the recently-erected, razor-wire- topped fence around the Capitol complex that USCP officials have asked to keep in place until September.
The report suggested a “mobile” fence that could be erected quickly in an emergency, NBC News reported.
Holly Matkin