Key takeaways from Homeland Security watchdog’s report on Secret Service’s Jan. 6 actions

The Secret Service is in the hot seat again, this time over its actions before and on Jan. 6, 2021. A new report from the Homeland Security Inspector General lays out several things the agency could have done better, from detecting a pipe bomb near Kamala Harris to reporting signs of potential violence. Washington Post investigative reporter Carol Leonnig joins Laura Barrón-López to discuss.
Laura Barrón-López:
The Secret Service is in the hot seat again, this time over its actions before and on January 6, a new report from the Homeland Security inspector general lays out several things the agency could have done better from detecting a viable pipe bomb within 20 feet of then Vice President Elect Kamala Harris to reporting signs of potential violence, like rally goers wearing ballistic helmets, body armor and other military grade equipment.
Joining us is Washington Post’s investigative reporter Carol Leonnig. Carol, thank you so much for your time. This report, Secret Service officials never testified before the House committee investigating January 6. And now this report seems to leave more questions than it does answers.
What are your main takeaways from it?
Carol Leonnig, Washington Post investigative reporter: You know, we knew some time ago that there had been a pipe bomb laid outside of both the RNC special offices on Capitol Hill and the DNC minutes before Kamala Harris was going to be coming out and was in that building. She was spirited out of the building. It was known at the time, but this sort of concretizes this makes it official. It’s no longer just reporters, learning it from their sources, but it’s actually the government affirming this.
The pipe bomb investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in DC has been one of the most labor intensive investigations in recent memory and most labor intensive for one that did not reach an answer. The FBI has still not discovered who were the people or persons who laid this this potential explosive that could have gone off in both locations in the minutes before the Capitol was actually reached and its security line was pressed through by protesters and supporters of Donald Trump’s that day after they stormed away from his rally and towards the capitol as he urged them to do.
Laura Barrón-López:
And Carol, I want to ask you because you have a new exclusive out about a secret investigation into whether Donald Trump received cash from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi alleged. And allegedly, if you could walk us through exactly how did $10 million possibly get from the Government of Egypt to then President-Elect Donald Trump?
Carol Leonnig:
What happened and what was jaw dropping for U.S. government investigators, federal prosecutors, FBI agents, was the CIA in early 2017 alerted the Department of Justice, that they had credible intelligence from an informant and corroborated by additional intelligence gathering, that el-Sisi had plans in late 2016, to basically inject or illegally give $10 million to Donald Trump’s reelection efforts that essentially he wanted to help Donald Trump get elected and he was going to do this with $10 million under the table.
Investigators looked and looked and looked to figure out if this intelligence was true, could they figure out was this money ever spirited to Donald Trump? Did he in their words, accept a bribe? But the problem was, although they found a debate, Tyro bank had made a bizarre withdrawal of cash, exactly matching the intelligence $10 million pulled out of essentially Egyptian CIA’s account, just as the intelligence suggested they found this withdrawal of cash stuffed into duffel bags, five days before Donald Trump became president.
But the problem for investigators in the United States was they wanted to get Donald Trump’s records, his bank records to determine did that money from Cairo that was so suspicious $10 million in U.S. bills, did it land in Donald Trump’s accounts? And U.S. attorney and basically said no, I’m not going to let you subpoena those records. You don’t have enough evidence to do that.
And Bill Barr, the attorney general at the time, was very suspicious of this request to subpoena for records and express doubts about whether or not this case was justified. In the end, the prosecutors and the FBI agents threw up their hands. They said they couldn’t do this investigation without getting that information. And they were despondent because they felt they had a lot of evidence suggesting this could be true. They had to find out if it was and they were never allowed to do that.
Laura Barrón-López:
It’s pretty stunning, Carol. I mean, Egypt has been in the news a lot lately, namely because Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was convicted just last month of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. Is there a possible pattern here of Egypt’s efforts in trying to influence U.S. politicians?
Carol Leonnig:
The key linchpin in all of this, Laura, is again, Egypt’s general intelligence agency, essentially, el-Sisi CIA. This is an important spy network that Sisi has relied upon to pressure and push for his agenda abroad, especially in the United States.
What Menendez is bribery conviction and trial showed was the general intelligence services top officials were reaching out and making friends with Menendez and trying to steer him to push specific things that were important to Sisi on the world stage. They went so far as Menendez actually giving them some important information that was pretty sensitive about employees of our government who are in Egypt, which was pretty sensitive information.
And it went so far that he took a lot of money from people who are operating at Egypt’s bidding, and he was accused of being a foreign agent of that country. The general intelligence service, once again, Sisi’s CIA was the entity that the U.S. Intelligence said would be used to spirit this money for Donald Trump. And the general intelligence service account is where that bizarre $10 million cash withdrawal came from.
Laura Barrón-López:
Carol Leonnig of The Washington Post, thank you for your time.
Carol Leonnig:
Thank you, Laura.