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Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar told reporters today that the Senate Rules and Homeland Security Committees would hold another joint hearing next week with Pentagon officials testifying.
“Yes, they’re coming next week. We’re having another hearing,” Klobuchar said.
Acting Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee told the committees today that he was “stunned” at the Army’s hesitation to deploy the National Guard to the Capitol on Jan. 6 as the attack was unfolding. Today’s hearing is the first of what Klobuchar said would be a series of hearings examining the security failures on Jan. 6.
“There were clearly intelligence issues — with information that was out there that didn’t get to the right people, actions that weren’t taken, and mostly that the National Guard, where there was a combination of the Defense Department and when the request was made weren’t called in in a major way,” Klobuchar told reporters outside the hearing room.
Klobuchar also said there was a clear structural problem with Capitol Police, where the chief had to go to the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms for approval, suggesting changes needed to be made.
“To have that structure where in a crisis he’s trying to go to them, while they’re trying to protect the members, it doesn’t really make any sense at all,” Klobuchar said. “So the structure has to be changed. It doesn’t mean have the board, you want someone to supervise, but not those day-to-day decisions, the emergency decisions.”