Whistleblower says Capitol Police leaders acted “with intent and malice” on January 6

A former senior member of the Capitol Police wrote a dazzling denunciation letter to members of Congress accusing the leaders of the force of knowingly failing to help their own officers in the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol, then d ‘obscure the fact for personal gain. The former officer spent several hours with Yogananda Pittman, then intelligence chief of the Capitol Police, and Sean Gallagher, its uniformed operations chief, on the day of the attempted insurgency. The whistleblower wrote: “What I observed was that they were mostly sitting there staring blankly at TV screens showing real-time footage of officers and officials fighting. for Congress and their lives… It is my claim that these two with intent and malice chose not to try to help officers and officials, blame others for failures and choose to try to use this event for their own personal promotions.

The letter also alleges that Pittman lied to Congress about an intelligence report submitted just a day before the riot. Pittman served as the force’s acting chief following the resignation of the former chief, but returned to her role as chief of intelligence in August following a vote of no confidence from base officers. Gallagher handled Pittman’s job during her tenure as interim chef, but returned to her old job when she did the same. The whistleblower left the Capitol police six months after the Capitol riot.