Capitol Police chief accuses House and Senate officials of blocking efforts to call National Guard

Outgoing Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund is blaming House and Senate security officials for the Wednesday fiasco where a Trump-inspired mob stormed into the Capitol building and the National Guard took hours to arrive on the scene to quell the crowds.

Sund, 55, said he anticipated a huge turnout of MAGA supporters on January 6 as Congress held a historic joint-session to certify the election.

‘We knew it would be bigger. We looked at the intelligence. We knew we would have large crowds, the potential for some violent altercations. I had nothing indicating we would have a large mob seize the Capitol,’ he said Sunday to the Washington Post.

To be safe on Monday, two days before the session, he asked House and Senate security officials for permission to request the DC National Guard be placed on standby, but he was turned down, he revealed.

Sund resigned from his post one day following the ransacking of the US Capitol.

It has been revealed that in the build up to the deadly Capitol riot, the FBI visited extremists and urged them not to travel to DC for the rally, according to a Fox News report.  

It’s not clear how many extremists were contacted nor how far in advance. The FBI also warned Capitol Police about potential violence on January 6.

On Wednesday Trump gave a speech, urging his supporters to march to the Capitol and ‘fight’ against lawmakers confirming Biden’s election victory and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani urged their followers to engage in ‘trial by combat’, creating a perfect storm for the riot.

Washington police said the riot resulted in five deaths, including a Capitol Police officer, and a woman who was shot inside the building, and 70 arrests. 

Sund reveals his supervisors were reluctant to take steps to put the Guard on call.

House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said he wasn’t comfortable with the ‘optics’ of formally declaring an emergency before the rally.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger reportedly suggested Sund informally seek out Guard contacts and ask them to ‘lean forward’ and be on alert in case Capitol Police needed their help, without officially calling upon them ahead of time.

Sund said that was just the tip of the iceberg. He tried five more times to request help and was rejected or delayed.

In the end Sund called Maj. Gen William J Walker, the head of the 1,000-member DC National Guard to ask for help.

He said: ‘If we can get you leaning forward how long do you think it would take to get us assistance?’

Walker said he could send 125 personnel quickly.

Sund also spoke with DC Police Chief Robert J. Contee III who offered to help if trouble stirred.

On Wednesday afternoon his forces, numbering 1,400 officers on duty, were outnumbered and overwhelmed by an army of 8,000 pro-Trump demonstrators breaking into the Capitol.

The first wave of MAGA supporters arrived at the Capitol at 12.40pm.

‘As soon as they hit the fence line, the fight was on. Violent confrontations from the start. They came with riot helmets, gas masks, shields, pepper spray, fireworks, climbing gear – climbing gear! – explosives, metal pipes, baseball bats. I have never seen anything like it in 30 years of events in Washington,’ Sund recalled.

‘I realized at 1pm things aren’t going well. I’m watching my people get slammed,’ he said.

Contee sent in 100 officers. But by 1.09pm the situation grew dire and Sund called Irving and Stenger asking to call in the Guard. They said they’d ‘run it up the chain’. 

‘If we would have had the National Guard we could have held them at bay longer, until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive,’ he said.

By 2pm when the Trump mob breached the Capitol and lawmakers were sent on lockdown, DC police dispatched hundreds of officers to the scene.

Sund joined a conference call to the Pentagon at 2.26pm to ask for back-up.

‘I am making an urgent, urgent immediate request for National Guard assistance. I have got to get boots on the ground,’ Sund recalled saying.

Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, the director of the Army Staff, said he could not recommend his boss, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy to approve the request, because he didn’t like ‘the visual’.

‘I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background,’ Piatt said, according to Sund.

Other officials on the call recall how Sund was desperate for help.

‘Literally this guy is on the phone, I mean, Crying out for help. It’s burned in my memorie,’ John Falcicchio, the chief of staff for DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said.

Finally Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller verbally authorized the activation of the entire DC Guard at 3.04pm.

But it took more than two hours for those soldiers to leave their homes, pick up their fear from the DC Armory, and arrive on site.

In the end the first round of National Guard personnel arrived at 5.40pm, hours after the breach and after four people died.

Following Wednesday’s chaos, some have criticized DC officials for not preparing in advance or having a riot contingency plan in place – but Sund explains he did ask for help to prepare, but was denied.

Pentagon officials have similarly emphasized that Capitol Police didn’t ask for DC Guard backup.

‘We rely on Capitol Police and federal law enforcement to provide an assessment of the situation. And based on that assessment that they had, they believed they had sufficient personnel and did not make a request,’ Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a news conference.

Sund, who was hired as chief in 2019 and worked for 23 years on the DC police force, resigned on Thursday, a day after the riot. He’s a prominent name in the district and helped run 12 national security events including Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration.

He told his friends he felt he let his officers down.

Under pressure from lawmakers, Stenger and Irving resigned too.

Sund says he only wanted to defend his officers and he’s now worried about the threat of violence n Inauguration Day.

‘My concern is if they don’t get their act together with physical security, it’s going to happen again,’ he said. 

Sund says his biggest takeaway from the traumatic event is that America’s democracy needs more security.

‘They were extremely dangerous and they were extremely prepared. I have a hard time calling this a demonstration,’ he said.

‘I’m a firm supporter of First Amendment. This was none of that. This was criminal riotous activity,’ he added.

‘This is the people’s house. Congress members have always prided themselves on having an open campus. I’m not sure that will continue to be defensible,’ he said.

At least two Capitol Police officers died in the wake of the riot.

On Sunday it was revealed that US Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood, 51, died while off-duty Saturday, just three days after the riot. 

The cause of death was not disclosed but sources said Liebengood took his own life.

Fellow officer Brian Sicknick died Thursday after reportedly having been hit over the head by a fire extinguisher during the riots.