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 D’Antuono in the days before the riot predicting violence at the Capitol.
“And I had a video call with him on that Tuesday and nothing’s said about it?” he added.
Sund told Carlson that he now knows that former Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller and General Mark Milley were so worried about the potential for violence, they discussed locking down Washington, D.C., and revoking permits on Capitol Hill. Sund said he would have been the one in charge of revoking the permits, but no one had told him about the threats.
Instead, according to Sund, Miller sent out a memo on January 4, 2021, restricting the National Guard from carrying certain weapons and civil disobedience equipment at the Capitol that would have helped them control the crowd.
When the protest devolved into a riot at the Capitol, Sund said Paul Irving, the House Sergeant at Arms, and Mike Singer, the Senate Sergeant at Arms refused to authorize him to bring in the National Guard. Irving worked for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Singer worked for then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Sund said for the next 71 minutes he made 32 calls begging for federal law enforcement assistance. He noted that the riot was taking place right outside of Singer’s office but he still delayed approval.
He told Carlson that he finally got approval to bring in the National Guard at 2:09 p.m. but the troops did not arrive on scene until 6 p.m., hours after the fighting had stopped.
“It doesn’t seem like people really want to get to the bottom of it,” he said. “It really doesn’t. And it just gets worse. It gets worse from there.”
While he was still begging for help, Sund said that Irving had told him that he didn’t like the “optics” of the National Guard on Capitol Hill.
“This sounds like a set up to me,” Carlson told Sund. “I’m sorry, it does.”
“It gets better,” Sund replied. “So I beg and beg and he goes, ‘well, I’m gonna walk down the hall and we’ll talk to the Secretary of Defense or whoever he’s gonna talk to.’ Right then I get a notification, oh, I’m still on the call, we have the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. And I said we have shots firing, I still remember yelling over the phone. We have shots firing on the U.S. Capitol, is that urgent enough for you now?”
He noted that the 150 to 180 National Guard Troops that are usually stationed near the Capitol were inexplicably driven away from the Capitol to the D.C Armory on Jan. 6, and he was sent evening troops.
“Can you frickin’ believe me?” he exclaimed.
He told Carlson that while he was begging for help, the Pentagon sent resources to the generals’ homes to protect them instead of the Capitol.
Sund also said the same Pentagon that was so concerned about “optics,” had the National Guard troops that finally arrived pose in front of the Capitol for a magazine shoot.
“So you begin to think—it seems kind of conspiratorial,” Sund said. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist but I can see how people begin to go down that rabbit hole.”
Ep. 15 Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reveals what really happened on January 6th. Our Fox News interview with him never aired, so we invited him back. pic.twitter.com/opDlu4QGlp
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 10, 2023
Last May, Sund pointed out on Twitter that Fox News had “canned” Carlson as the host was planning to air his original interview.
“On the day he was fired, @TuckerCarlson was planning to air parts of our 1-hour interview and showcase my book,” Sund wrote in a May 5 tweet. “It was an interview he was excited about and said it ‘made the hair on my arm stand up.’ But Fox canned both Tucker and the interview. Coincidence?”
On the day he was fired, @TuckerCarlson was planning to air parts of our 1-hour interview and showcase my book. It was an interview he was excited about and said it “made the hair on my arm stand up.” But Fox canned both Tucker and the interview. Coincidence? pic.twitter.com/QA9jdfFjsb
— Chief Steven Sund (@ChiefSund) May 5, 2023