WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday is releasing a report on situation.

The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of Donald Trump’s supporters planned the siege with online messages and discussions.

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible.”

The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. 

While other reports have investigated the ramp up to, and events of that day, the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has since made changes. And the FBI said that since the attack, it has increased focus on “swift information sharing.”

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