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thing it does so well. It carried out an exercise of
how it should respond to a national emergency, at
11:00 a.m. on the morning of January 6th.
We now know that in the run-up to January
6th and the constitutionally mandated Joint Ses-
sion of Congress, that the domestic intelligence
apparatus—which includes the FBI, Secret Ser-
vice, Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the Current
and Emerging Threats Center of homeland se-
curity, D.C.-area military commands, the Metro-
politan Washington area fusion centers, even the
Capitol Police’s own threat-warning cell—had
ample reports about the trouble brewing and
were actively monitoring social media, both pub-
licly available pages and private and encrypted
channels.
But this same prodigious machine has strug-
gled for years with the lexicon of domestic ter-
rorism, acquiring and then throwing away labels,
and hardening and softening official language
to match both the threat and politics of the day.
Domestic violent extremists, Black supremacist
extremists, Black identity extremists, anarchist
extremists, militia extremists, Sovereign Citizenpromised during the Trump presidency and that
other agencies distrusted them.
What is the proper role of the armed forces at
home? The military enjoyed all of the privileges of
being America’s most-respected institution while
also being driven by its own priorities. “There’s
no role for the U.S. military in determining the
outcome of a U.S. election,” Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley said this
past summer and has repeated ever since.
It was a statement that signaled to those in
uniform that the military should get out of pol-
itics and even get out of the way. And so, despite
its own homeland defense apparatus created out
of 9/11, it pursued its anti-political mission sin-
gle-mindedly, not preparing. Not doing the oneextremists, racially motivated violent extremists,
white supremacist extremists. The terminology is
fraught (neo-Nazis or anti-fascists) or so anodyne
(words like protestors and even patriots) that it
conveys almost nothing.
Into all of this, a Save America Rally was orga-
nized. It was widely promoted on social media
and tens of thousands were expected to come to
Washington, D.C., to participate. Starting in the
morning, Donald Trump and his warm-up acts
repeatedly urged the crowd to march on the Cap-
itol—to be strong—and by the time the Capitol
Police’s defenses were breached at about 2:00 p.m.
in the afternoon, the crowd was fully pumped up.
But by then as well, it was clear that, in addition to
mere protestors, selfie-takers, hangers-on, conspir-GATHERING STORM
(Right) A video screen
image of Donald Trump
helps whip up the crowd
before his speech to
supporters on January 6th.
(Below) Trump supporters
set up across from the
Capitol, as Congress met
to certify the election.by fearfully silencing any reference to partisan politics, the
u.s. national security apparatus ensured its own failure.SPECIAL REPORT