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- 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 had revealed lawmakers' locations.
- The agency's internal watchdog recommended discipline for 6 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 revealing the secure location lawmakers had been evacuated to during the January 6 insurrection, according to documents obtained by McClatchy.
The US Capitol Police announced on September 11 that it intends to discipline six officers for 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."
The agency said that the US Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., had not found enough evidence, however, to charge any of the disciplined officers with any crimes.
The mob that descended on the US Capitol on January 6 - driven by former President Donald Trump's false conspiracies 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 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... he's just fallen into this cult and these beliefs," the friend told Capitol Police investigators in an interview, per the documents.
The officer in question denied that he agreed with the rioters' belief that the election was stolen from Trump, but didn't rule out the possibility that he inadvertently revealed 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, per McClatchy.
Both the communications and leadership breakdowns by Capitol Police leadership and the actions of specific officers leading up to and on January 6 has been a focus of congressional committees probing the insurrection, and now, potentially the House Select Committee on January 6 as well.