The Senate released their report on the Capitol Hill riot this morning and the number of oversights is stunning. The Capitol Police didn’t analyze their intelligence on potential mayhem adequately. As a result, they were totally unprepared. It goes without saying that Capitol Police never requested that the National Guard be on standby in case of an emergency. Nothing was planned.
When it comes to federal law enforcement, the FBI and DHS didn’t take the threats of a potential riot seriously. They didn’t offer briefs either. As for Capitol Police again, their civil disturbance unit is apparently ad hoc and lacks proper training and equipment. The rank-and-file, according to the report, “were not provided periodic training in basic civil disturbance tactics.”
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but the media also played a role in mucking up the response to this fiasco. Remember when the media went ballistic when police cleared out Lafayette Square of all the leftist riffraff during the summer of rioting due to George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis? It was the ‘American Tiananmen.’ The media’s overblown reaction to the dispersing of these rioters coupled with the media’s fake news tweet that National Guard deployment had been denied when the chaos began on January 6—further delayed a response:
DOD’s response to January 6 was informed by criticism it received about its response to the civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd during the summer of 2020. DOD was criticized for its heavy-handed response, particularly flying military helicopters over the protests in summer 2020. DOD officials cited lessons learned from the summer 2020 as guiding its decision-making for January 6. DOD officials believed it needed “control measures” and “rigor” before deploying DCNG personnel, including a clear deployment plan to avoid the appearance of over-militarization.
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Inaccurate media reports stating that DOD had denied a request for DCNG support slowed DOD’s mission analysis efforts. At 2:55 p.m., a reporter tweeted that DOD “had just denied a request by D.C. officials to deploy the National Guard to the US Capitol,” despite the fact that no denial had been ordered and senior DOD officials were still analyzing the request. Christopher Miller approved DCNG mobilization at 3:04 p.m., understanding that DOD officials would then conduct “mission analysis.” Ryan McCarthy, however, spent at least half an hour fielding calls and reassuring Congressional and local leaders that DOD “was indeed coming.”
So, while not entirely their fault, the media certainly set up a massive roadblock when it came to responding to this riot. The fake news these people peddle cause damage. This isn’t the first time they done this; you know that. And the coverage of this report has, to no one’s surprise, been equally abysmal. The Washington Post described the riot as an ‘armed invasion.’ The rioters were out of control, but they didn’t kill any police officers. Officer Brian Sicknick’s death during the riot was weaponized by the liberal media to smear all Trump supporters. It was eventually revealed that he died of natural causes. The only person to die inside the Capitol was Ashli Babbitt. This isn’t ‘whataboutism’ when it comes to Sicknick. It’s correcting the record. It was fake news for the liberal media to say Sicknick was murdered by the rioters. He wasn’t. And this wasn’t an insurrection, and it wasn’t an armed invasion. These people are still lying about it.
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