- As the mob swarmed into the U.S. Capitol, Pennsylvania congresswoman Susan Wild took cover, squeezing into a tight aisle in an upper-floor gallery and inching across the floor as supporters of President Donald Trump banged on the doors.
“It wasn’t until things really escalated that there was a kind of a panicky state,” said the Pennsylvania Democrat. The siege that left five people dead, including a police officer, and up to 60 officers injured, prompted lawmakers to demand an investigation into security lapses. Fallout has been swift. The Capitol Police chief will resign. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House sergeant at arms would resign. And top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said he would fire the Senate sergeant at arms.
Sund, who on Thursday agreed to resign, described the “mass riots” as “criminal” and said the officers were “heroic given the situation.”For weeks, Trump had urged supporters to show up for a “wild” march to “Save America” in the nation’s capital on Jan. 6. In his speech that day, he repeated baseless claims of voter fraud in the election won by Democrat Joe Biden and exhorted his supporters to “fight.
She called Sund again during the riots, while barricaded in her office with her staff. She said she was frightened and furious at the lack of communication from police. Sund offered little comfort, she said. Defense officials also said that intelligence reports provided by law enforcement did not suggest any threats of the kind of violence that broke out Wednesday. The reports’ estimates of expected crowds varied wildly - from 2,000 to 80,000, they said.
Sources familiar with planning at the Homeland Security and Justice departments also said the agencies were not asked to provide security forces for the Capitol beforehand, in contrast to their deployment during last summer’s racial justice protests. The Justice Department sent 500 law enforcement officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and four other offices to the Capitol on Wednesday – but only after the rioting was under way.
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