In an interview with Tucker Carlson Thursday, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund alleged that federal agencies withheld crucial intelligence from his department about the potential for violence on January 6, 2021.
The mission of the United States Capitol Police is to protect Congress, yet, according to Sund, he was kept in the dark about intelligence assessments regarding alleged plots to attack the Capitol and harm members of Congress.
Carlson previously spoke with Sund for his former Fox show earlier this year, but that interview never aired. Carlson posted the explosive new interview Thursday on X.
Sund, a 30-plus year veteran of D.C. law enforcement, told Carlson that he was a “rule of law” type of guy who thought it was very important to perform his duties in as apolitical a way as possible. Sund resigned from his position shortly after the riot amid pressure from Congress and the Capitol Police union.
He said he has seen many “special security events” during his career, and J6 security was handled very differently than anything else he’d experienced.
Sund explained that the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the military were “swimming” in intelligence that pointed to potential violence on January 6, but he hadn’t heard a peep about it.
“Think about it. I am the chief of police at the United States Capitol, probably one of the most prominent and should be the most secure building in the United States and the world. You know, you’d like to think of that,” Sund said. “But when you look at it, and don’t take my word for it, look at, there’s now at least four congressional reports talking about the intelligence failure, IG reports, GAO reports talking about various intelligence failures. But coming into it, you know, think about it. FBI, the Washington Field Office didn’t put out a single document, a single official document specific to January 6.”
“DHS didn’t put out a single official document specific to January 6,” Sund continued. “That’s very unusual. I’ve been through many other events in Washington, D.C. — FBI would host a joint conference call at the least and maybe an executive JTTF, Joint Terrorism Task Force briefing or, and for all these big events, DHS and FBI would get together and put out something that was called JIB — Joint Intelligence Bulletin. Zero for January 6.”
Carlson told the former USCP chief that it was hard to believe that he was left out of the loop accidentally.
“You’ve described this as an intelligence failure, but a failure is something that happens accidentally and I don’t see how this could be accidental, ” he remarked.
Sund said that in the days before the riot, he’d had conference calls with law enforcement officials who had access to intelligence about the potential for violence, but neglected to fill him in on it. He said that on January 5, the day before the rally, he organized a call with multiple law enforcement leaders, including then-D.C. Chief of Police Robert Contee; Steven M. D’Antuono, former assistant FBI director in charge of the Washington Field Office; General Omar Jones, then-Commander of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington; and William Walker, the former commanding general of the D.C. National Guard.
“Not one person on that call talked about any concerns with the intelligence—an attack on the Capitol, threats to our officers—that’s what’s scary,” he said.
Sund noted that a Government Accountability Office report came out in July of 2023 showing multiple emails going to...
