Internal emails reveal Capitol security officials dismissed warnings about troubling social media posts before January 6 riot

Newly revealed internal emails show an outside group warned Capitol security officials one day before the January 6 insurrection about a series of troubling social media posts calling for people to storm the US Capitol and kill federal employees, evidence that concerns about this kind of online chatter were raised in yet another way ahead of the attack but ultimately still dismissed at the time.

Even after reviewing the posts in question, security officials across Capitol Hill were adamant on January 5 that they did not see any indication of a credible threat, according to the emails, which have not been previously reported. The emails also provide further insight, which extends beyond what has been learned through public testimony and internal reviews related to January 6, into what Capitol security officials knew, and ultimately chose not to act on, prior to the attack. And they raise questions about whether officials underestimated threat information that came from public sources -- what is known in the intelligence community as open-source intelligence -- in favor of information gathered by more clandestine methods.