- A Capitol Police officer's 40-year friend turned him in to the FBI after the January 6 insurrection.
- The friend worried the officer had "fallen into a cult" and said he disclosed lawmakers' locations.
- The agency's internal watchdog recommended discipline for six officers over the riots.
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A US Capitol Police officer's friend of 40 years worried he'd "fallen into a cult" and reported the officer to the FBI for disclosing the secure location that lawmakers had been evacuated to during the January 6 insurrection, documents obtained by McClatchy said.
The US Capitol Police announced on September 11 that it intends to discipline six officers over their actions on January 6, following 38 internal investigations into officer conduct on that day.
The agency's Office of Professional Responsibility was only able to identify the actual officers involved in 20 of the complaints and substantiate actual violations by six of them.
The office recommended punishment in the cases of three officers for "conduct unbecoming": one for "failure to comply with directives," one for "improper remarks," and another for "improper dissemination of information."
But the agency said the US attorney's office in Washington, DC, hadn't found enough evidence to charge any of the disciplined officers with any crimes.
The mob that descended on the US Capitol on January 6 — driven by President Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him — sought to stop Congress from counting the electoral votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's election win.
The friend, identified as 'ANONYMOUS,' called the FBI and expressed concern that the officer genuinely believed Trump's election-fraud claims, sympathized with the rioters' cause, and put lawmakers' safety at risk, McClatchy reported, citing internal investigative documents that have not been made public.
"I don't want to report a friend of forty years but he's says enough concerning statements that I feel like I need to do this," the friend told Capitol Police investigators in an interview, the documents said. The friend continued, "He's just fallen into this cult and these beliefs."
The officer in question denied that he agreed with the rioters' belief that the election was stolen from Trump, but he didn't rule out the possibility that he inadvertently disclosed the lawmakers' secure evacuation location.
"I can't say one hundred percent that I didn't do what you're telling me I did," the officer in question told internal investigators, McClatchy reported.
The communication and management breakdowns by Capitol Police leadership and the actions of specific officers leading up to and on January 6 have been a focus of congressional committees probing the insurrection. Now, they may also be a focus of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
"There were several reasons I refused to stay in the 'secure location' on the 6th. This was one of them,'" Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to McClatchy's reporting. "Few people want to discuss the reality and implications of this because it's politically difficult, fraught, and unpopular, but it's right there. And we need to talk about it."