Why didn't Capitol Police leaders take the threat seriously? The answer is obvious, but media won't say so
By DAN FROOMKIN FEBRUARY 24, 2021 12:00AM (UTC)

Steven Sund, the disgraced former chief of the U.S. Capitol Police Department, was explicitly warned in a Jan. 3 memo from his own intelligence unit that thousands of desperate, violence-prone Trump supporters were planning to target Congress on Jan. 6, encouraged by the president himself.

The memo didn't really say much more than was already obvious to anyone paying attention, but it was authoritative, detailed and, of course, prescient.Sund waved it off. He didn't bother to share it with the rank and file. He didn't equip his frontline officers with tear gas, or other non-lethal crowd-control weapons, or riot gear. Instead, he sent them out in street uniforms to man barricades made of bike racks, and get the shit beaten out of them. One officer died, and many others were injured. He let the Capitol fall to a mob.

But in his first public comments on Tuesday, Sund had the breathtaking gall to blame the breach of the Capitol not on his own poor decision-making, but on a "clear lack of accurate and complete intelligence across several federal agencies."

And the pathetic, credulous, ill-informed senators to whom he was testifying lapped it up. They focused relentlessly on one minor data point — a Feb. 5 report from the FBI's Norfolk field office, which described a single thread from a message board that called for war and included a map of the Capitol's tunnels.

But take a few moments to read this one "redacted" excerpt from the internal Jan. 3 memo that the Post made public. Sund's excuses fall apart. (The public really needs to see the full, unredacted memo, by the way.)

Due to the tense political environment following the 2020 election, the threat of disruptive actions or violence cannot be ruled out. Supporters of the current president see January 6, 2021, as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election. This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent. Unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter-protesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th. As outlined above, there has been a worrisome call for protesters to come to these events armed and there is the possibility that protesters may be inclined to become violent. Further, unlike the events on November 14, 2020, and December 12, 2020, there are several more protests scheduled on January 6, 2021, and the majority of them will be on Capitol grounds. The two protests expected to [be] the largest of the day — the Women for American First protest on the Ellipse and the Stop the Steal protest in Areas 8 and 9 — may draw thousands of participants and both have been promoted by President Trump himself. The Stop the Steal protest in particular does not have a permit, but several high profile speakers, including Members of Congress are expected to speak at the event. This combined with Stop the Steal's propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence, may lead to significantly dangerous situations for law enforcement and the general public alike.

Imagine reading that memo and failing to put your own officers on red alert; failing to prepare them to repel what seemed like an inevitable onslaught.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-dc-hotel-hiking-rates-qanon-think-sworn-march-4-2021-2

Trump's DC hotel is hiking prices for March 4 — the day QAnon followers think the former president will be sworn in.

QAnon's most dedicated followers still believe that former President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 presidential election, is yet to be sworn in.

March 4, 2021 is a day they have marked in their diaries, insisting that is the date when Trump will be inaugurated in Washington, DC, and, ultimately, return to power.

Coincidentally, Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC is hiking up the prices of suites around that period. The hotel, just blocks away from the White House, has almost tripled the rates for some rooms on the nights of March 3 and 4, according to Forbes.

RNC Chair Calls QAnon ‘Beyond Fringe’ And ‘Dangerous’

In an interview with the Associated Press RNC Ronna McDaniel forcefully condemned the pro-Trump conspiracy theorists.

NEW YORK (AP) — The head of the Republican National Committee on Wednesday declined to encourage former President Donald Trump to run for the White House in 2024, saying the GOP would stay “neutral” in its next presidential primary.

In an interview, RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel also described the pro-Trump conspiracy theory group known as QAnon as “dangerous.”

The national GOP, under McDaniel’s leadership, spent the past four years almost singularly focused on Trump’s 2020 reelection. But should he run again in 2024 — and he has publicly and privately suggested he wants to — the national party infrastructure would not support his ambitions over other prospective candidates in accordance with party rules, she said.