The NPR Politics Podcast - Capitol Police Are Still Dealing With The Aftermath Of January 6th

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Chief Tom Manger says that he is dealing with low morale and high turnover as the force attempts to reinvent itself in the wake of last year's attack on the Capitol. There were more than 9000 threats against members of Congress last year.This episode: demographics and culture correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and acting congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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It is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. I'm Claudia Garizales. I cover Congress. And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I also cover Congress. The head of the Capitol Police, Tom Manger, will testify before Congress for the first

time this week. He's been on the job only six months. He'll be there to talk about how security at the Capitol has changed in the year since the January 6th attack and ongoing issues in the police force. And today we are going to talk about all of that. Now, Claudia, you have been reporting on this, so let's start here. The attack took a huge toll on the department. It's led to a lot of turnover there. So let's start, just give us a sense of what that turnover has looked like. What's the scope of it? Right, right. It's been tremendous loss for the agency this past year. They lost several officers who died after the attack. More than 80 were injured,

some of which are still on medical leave, even today, a year later. and more than 130 have quit since the siege. And in some respects, even though that's a large number, that's better than expectations. There were worries that hundreds could quit in the wake of the January 6th attack, but less so. That all said, you know, there's concerns about all that remains for the agency and the work ahead to make sure the Capitol is safe again. Do we have a more detailed sense of the reasons for those quits? Is it, you know, that attack happened, I just can't be on the Hill anymore? What kind of a sense do you have of this? A whole range. I sat down with Tom Manger to talk more about this,

and he said some are retirements that were planned. Some are new jobs that these officers found that they felt would be better opportunities. And there are many who quit in reaction to the attack. They did not want to be a part of policing there, that agency, after that violent confrontation with rioters. Well, now, Deirdre, you have reported from the Hill, a lot of fears about security, a lot of trauma that staffers who were there that day, members who were there that day, you know,

sort of openly admit is hard to relive as you walk through the halls. You're walking through the same halls where people breached the Capitol and tried to attack, you know, the chamber where a lot of members still go every day. We don't have the same kind of data tried to attack, you know, the chamber where a lot of members still go every day. We don't have the same kind of data in terms of, you know, departures, the way the Capitol Police has tracked their force. But, you know, anecdotally, I can tell you that, you know, people I know who have left the Hill in recent months admit that what happened on January 6th contributed to their decision to move on, that it's just hard to work there, that, you know, it's hard to create the same kind of bipartisan atmosphere, that they feel like they were able to achieve, you know, legislative

accomplishments before. They feel like those are harder to come by now, and relationships across the aisle have suffered. Right. And while January 6th was just a one-day event, as you kind of allude to there, there have been lasting repercussions and also political anger and animosity certainly have not gone away. We know that threats against members have continued in the years since the attack. Claudia, you reported some really upsetting, staggering numbers on this. Right. Yes. Capitol Police are saying that for the year 2021, they saw more than 9,000 threats against members. That's more than double what they saw five years earlier when the numbers were under 4,000 cases. It's really fueled a lot of new work for the agency. You can even see it when you're

at the Capitol with members who have beefed up their security. We're seeing members such as members of the Democratic squad, as we know, in the House surrounded by more members of security details. We see this as well with GOP Representative Liz Cheney. They're just more heavily surrounded in terms of any concerns they may be facing. It's pretty visible. And so as a result, the agency even opened up two field offices. This is the first time they do this in California and Florida. That's where they have the highest number of cases. And this is all part of their effort to try and address all of these thousands of threats. And, you know, it's not clear whether this year will bring even a similar level of cases or more. I mean, I would

say over the years, members of Congress have barely been reluctant to talk about security threats. I mean, the standard operating procedure was if they got threats into their offices in Washington or in their districts, they report them to the local authorities and the Capitol Police and the Capitol Police sort of make a determination on a case by case basis about whether they need some additional security, you know, at home or back in Washington, or even just traveling through airports or train stations. But members have been more open about the types of threats they've been getting. I mean, we saw members of both parties release, you know, telephone tape recordings of some of the threats

that have come in to their offices, and they've been pretty scary, you know, threats against them personally, you know, death threats against them, against their families. And I think that scared a lot of members of Congress. And, you know, now there are resources for members to, you know, to seek assistance in terms of setting up security. And they are using parts of their, you know, sort of regular office budgets to defray increased security costs. That's just sort of now the part of operating a congressional office these days. So long story short here seems to be that there have been improvements, but there's still a lot more room for improvement in terms of security on the Hill. And that's what the Capitol Police's watchdog, their inspector general, has said in a report.

What do they say still needs improvement, Claudia? Yes, they have issued 104 recommendations for the agency to address. Of those, about a third have been completed. Capitol Police are still working through the rest of the themes that the inspector general emphasized in testimony before the Senate Rules Committee recently is that more officers need to get security clearances. This is part of shifting the posture of the agency from more of a reactionary stance to one of a more protection, protectionary role, if you will. It's almost like becoming a Capitol Police officer is a different job now than it was pre-January 6th, because there wasn't all this focus on the need for intelligence about possible attacks on the building, right? And now there's a lot of chatter on social media about different you know, different issues. You know, there are always protests, you know, around big votes.

I remember, you know, thousands of people outside the Capitol before the vote on Obamacare. But that was just a much more tame atmosphere than we saw on January 6th. And I would imagine as you become a member of the force, it just changes the way you approach your job. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break and we will talk more about this in a second. And we're back. All right. Let's turn to trauma emotional support resources on the Hill. What sorts of things have been available to Hill staff and Capitol Police? Claudia, let's start with you. So one area they were looking at is really addressing all of the trauma in the wake of January 6th. For example, they tried a new program this past year that brought in therapists to work directly with officers to work through some of

these issues of trauma left behind by this attack. But they wanted to do more. And so Manger told me that in the coming year, that they'll be adding a wellness center really close to the Capitol complex. This is something that was already in the works before January 6th, but now it's been ramped up. They have space, they believe, where they're going to be putting this together. There will be people there to help officers, whether it's mental health issues, could even be financial issues, a whole range of concerns to try and help these officers get through this really difficult past year. As we know, this is one of the most difficult years this agency has experienced in its about 200-year history. In terms of members and staff, I think there's been

more informal support set up. I know staffers and members have been able to get assistance through sort of the administrative offices on the Hill. But there are some groups that were just sort of formed in the days after. There's this so-called gallery group of House Democrats. Those were lawmakers that were spread out because of social distancing in the gallery above the house floor on the day of the insurrection. They were all very scared about what happened and sort of leaned on each other, clutching each other, saying, some of them saying prayers to each other, and they were evacuated together. And they sort of started this text chain, this group text chain, and have been

sort of in regular contact. And a lot of them have said that they didn't know some of their fellow colleagues all that well before the attack. Some of them were newer members or from sort of different geographic regions or even different ideological coalitions in the House Democratic Caucus. And they've leaned on each other a lot over the last year. Well, and of course, there are plenty of people working on the Hill besides Capitol Hill office staffers and Capitol Police officers. There are food service workers. There are janitors. There are legions of support staff up there. Do you all have any sense of what's going on with them since last January 6th, how they have dealt with this? I think it's been a difficult year for them. I mean, this is a big campus, as you said, you know, thousands of people come to work every

day in that complex. And as someone who's worked in the building for a long time and been back there recently, you know, there are a lot of people who work in the Capitol carryout where, you know, you pop in to get coffee or lunch who have been there for years. They're always happy to see people that they haven't seen in a while. But it's, you know, it's tough on them. It's not as many people are in the building. COVID hasn't had an impact on their jobs. who, you know, just the daily grind of screening people coming in the chamber through metal detectors every day is not something that's a happy thing. It's just a sort of, I think, a little bit draining. But, you know, there are lots of, you know, staffers who come to clean the building and clean offices, clean the press gallery where we work every day, who are still coming to work every

day. And I think they think it's an important place to work, but it's just gotten a little bit tougher. All right, one final question. We have a sort of grim milestone, of course, this week, one year since January 6th. What are the plans on the Hill to mark that anniversary? So the House is not in session this week, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a number of events to remember that day. You know, there will be a moment of silence on the House floor. She's going to be speaking from Statuary Hall. That is where, you know, dozens of rioters rush through to try to get to the House floor. That is just steps away from the House chamber. They're going to speak that day to talk about what happened a year ago. Then Pelosi has also organized a panel with historians. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to be part of that. And then there's going to be an evening prayer vigil. You know, it's worth noting that these are mostly events that are going to be attended by Democrats. A lot of Republicans are not going

to be in town that day. Senate Republicans are attending a memorial service for late Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson. But I think a lot of them would prefer to just sort of get past the day, whereas Democrats really are using it as a reminder to talk about the threat to democracy and their efforts to do, you know, to follow up on what happened and try to reform things going forward so that something like that doesn't happen again. All right, well, this has been a great conversation. We're going to leave it here for today. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I also cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.