Martin Heinrich Presses Capitol Police Chief On Uptick In Threats Against Lawmakers

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) spoke about the increase in threats made against lawmakers.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Chairman. Chief, one of the things I want to ask you about is talk a little bit about

00:08the Intelligence Services Bureau and how the posture there has changed over the course of

00:14the last few years. Four years ago, one of the biggest failures in January 6th was our intelligence

00:25failure. And we have gone from an agency that consumed intelligence, the FBI would inform us

00:34of things, and DHS. We are now a major player in the intelligence community in this region. We have

00:41folks assigned to different task forces, and we have folks working directly with the FBI and DHS,

00:47and we not only still consume intelligence, but we gather intelligence, we analyze the intelligence,

00:58we operationalize that intelligence. It allows us to do better operational planning for things that

01:05occur on our campus. And most importantly, we disseminate that intelligence. We disseminate

01:11it to our own folks, and we share it with other agencies in the intelligence community.

01:17As you mentioned in your testimony, there have been just very significant increases in the number

01:24of threats to senators and members of Congress. I think you said in your testimony that there were

01:29more than 9,400 incidents in 2024. Just talk a little bit generally about, you know, how Capitol

01:38police has responded to that and what the increase in protection response looks like under the current

01:44threat environment. So one of the biggest challenges was to keep up with that caseload. For some period

01:56of time after I got here, we had the same number of agents that were investigating the threats,

02:02and yet the number of threats had tripled, quadrupled. And so we had to add, and we continue to add,

02:08folks in our investigations division. And not only do I think they do a good job at investigating

02:17those cases, but where we were still, I think, falling short of the mark was in terms of our

02:24being responsive back to the reporting parties. The good news is that really through the efforts of

02:31the sergeant-at-arms, along with the Capitol Police, we have gotten members to report everything.

02:37And so, and this is good. But it's now up to us to make sure that we're responsive and that we get

02:44back to the reporting parties and let them know what progress we've made on the investigation,

02:48what we found out, those kinds of things. And we, for a long time, have fallen short on that.

02:54We have our Protection Investigative Intelligence Operations Center up and running 24-7 now,

03:02and that operations center will go a long way in making sure that not only are threats acted on

03:10immediately and get the appropriate attention, but that we are better at getting back to members

03:17with the information that we're able to gather through those investigations.

03:20I've seen firsthand the shift from sort of a one-way communication to more of a partnership. So I

03:30think on behalf of a lot of members, we appreciate that very much. I understand you only have a few

03:37weeks left before your retirement. Of all the changes that you've implemented in the department,

03:43which ones do you think had the greatest impact on moving the needle, improving security?

03:50I think getting the appropriate staff together. I mean, if you look at the,

03:58and I read every single one of the after-action reports that, you know, in 2021, many of them

04:06pointed out that the Capitol Police were woefully understaffed and had been historically understaffed,

04:13getting the staffing up to where it should be so that we can have the number of posts that we really

04:20need to have so we have enough screening entrances, you know, to handle the folks that come here to

04:30work, come here to visit, to be able to respond quickly. And one of the things I'm most proud of

04:36is our rapid response team, where when there's a disruption anywhere on this campus, there's a

04:42quick response by Capitol Police, and it's an effective response. And so I think that we are,

04:49we're ready for anything, whereas before it was always, well, we've got a problem here,

04:54let's find a few people that we can pull off of a post to respond. We are light years ahead of

04:59that with, with our operational planning now. And I, I'm, I think that this campus is, is much safer

05:06because of it. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you both for, for being here. Ms. Hemingway,

05:15I'd like to, like to start with you. You know, when we.

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