Testimony
The United States Senate took testimony yesterday on how January 6th, the day of the Insurrection, could have happened. How was the Capitol so unprepared for what many who view social media saw as foreseeable and predictable? Testifying were the three on the front line who take direct blame for the “fall” of the Capitol: the former Chief of the Capitol police, the former Sergeant of Arms of the Senate, and the former Sergeant of Arms of the House. All three resigned from their posts soon after the insurrection.
Also testifying was the Acting Chief of the Washington Metro police. He was the “outside” man who tried to pick up the pieces when the Capitol called for help.
They thought they were ready. They had all the intelligence, all the information. The Capitol weathered the Million MAGA march, and they were “prepared”. Prepared for a “First Amendment” event, as they call it, with the possibility of violence. What they now admit they weren’t prepared for, weren’t able to even contemplate, was a full assault on the Capitol building. They were ready for people chanting on the Mall, and screaming at the doors. But they never even drilled their forces for incursion into the building. It was beyond their wildest dreams.
Good Men
The witnesses are good men: decades on the Capitol Police force or in the Secret Service. They had all of the connections, friends in command at the National Guard, and intelligence sources they depended on. They have spent literal lifetimes building their careers and reputations. The former Sergeant of Arms have been on the Presidential Protection detail. It wasn’t knowledge that failed them, and it wasn’t some vague orders from either Nancy Pelosi (the National Guard would look bad) or even Donald Trump (let them in). It was a failure of imagination.
It’s hard to blame them. America is a nation of protests. The Capitol building has been the target so many times: of demonstrations and complaints, of crowds chanting and sometimes getting out of control. In 1932 the “Bonus Army”, more than 40,000 World War I veterans demanding a promised bonus from Congress, camped on the Mall in front of the Capitol for three months. It took the US Army, led by General Douglas MacArthur, to drive their former comrades off and raze their camp. Two were killed and fifty-five injured, in what MacArthur called a rebellion. But they were simply trying to get Congress to pay their veterans bonus in 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression, instead of the original 1945.
But though they were an “army” that wanted something from Congress, they didn’t attack the Capitol. They wanted action, not destruction.
Tradition of Protest
There have literally been thousands of marches on the Capitol. And there has been “civil disobedience” actions, where folks refuse to leave, or sit in the halls of the Congressional offices and chant. We’ve seen them led out of the buildings with “plastic handcuffs”, even some in wheelchairs. More recently Reverend Raphael Warnock, now Senator Warnock of Georgia, was arrested in protest.
And that’s what the Capitol Police were prepared for: angry and vocal Trump supporters, demanding that the Congress rescind the results of the 2020 election. That’s also why the House and the Senate continued in session for so long on that fateful day, seeming oblivious to the violence at their doors. But from the outside view, it seemed obvious that things were wholly different than any protest before. The Members were used to hearing the chanting, the yelling, and the “pressure” of the crowds outside. Congress prides itself on completing their business, regardless of the what else is going on.
But this time the protestors were coming in — for them.
For anyone on social media, the possibility of more than just a “first amendment” or “civil disobedience” event was more than clear. Violence was always part of their movement, at the Trump Rallies, at the demonstrations, and in the “lore” of QAnon and the other right-wing conspiracies. And, as many said at the time, they believed that they were acting “for America”. They were convinced that the election was corrupt, that “their” candidate was the true winner, and that they were trying to “save” the Nation. Once they took the first step – accepting the “Big Lie” about the election – everything else was foreseeable, perhaps even inevitable.
But not for the leaders of the Capitol protection services.
Questions
There are still many questions to answer. Why did the National Guard take so long to deploy? How did our Intelligence services “miss” what was obvious to so many “regular” citizens? And the biggest question of all, how did our Nation come to the point where one political leader was willing to defy two-hundred and thirty-four years of Constitutional precedent, and try to remain in office after losing an election?
After 9-11 we found that the intelligence of the plot to fly planes into buildings was right in front of us. The failure was in the communication among the intelligence agencies to put it together. And more importantly, there wasn’t the imagination to see flying fully loaded passenger planes into buildings as a real threat, even though it was the central plot of a popular Tom Clancy book (Executive Orders) just five years before.
The three should have resigned, they failed in their duty to protect on January 6th. But their failure wasn’t so much in action. It was a failure of imagination. A militant attack on the Capitol wasn’t in their wildest dreams.
