A bipartisan group of senators on Monday requested information from 22 agencies and departments related to the preparations for and response to the deadly insurrection of the Capitol last month. The senators issued their request a day before former President Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial is scheduled to begin.
The bipartisan group of senators — which include Democratic and Republican chairs of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Rules and Administration Committee, Judiciary Committee, Select Committee on Intelligence, Appropriations Committee and the Armed Services Committee — are seeking “all relevant information” from key law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies on the Capitol riots.
The bipartisan group of senators specify their interest in receiving information on intelligence gathering on potential violence prior to the attack, security preparations and detailed explanations of the agency’s security response.
Calling the Capitol riots as an event that “will forever be a stain” in the country’s history, the senators praised the “heroic acts of many officers and congressional staff.”
But they also noted the security failures that endangered lawmakers and law enforcement ultimately stood in the way of a peaceful transfer of power.
“Nevertheless, the security failures that led to the breach endangered not just the Vice President and the Congress, but the peaceful, democratic transfer of power itself,” the senators wrote. “The American people deserve a complete accounting of those failures.”
The bipartisan group of senators’ requests comes a month after leaders of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Rules Committees announced plans to conduct joint hearings and oversight of the security failures that led to the Capitol riots that Trump incited. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee alongside Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee announced the bipartisan Senate probes of “violent and criminal acts” days after the breaching of the Capitol last month.
Read the letter below:
