Whose job was it to restore order at the Capitol?

Across the nation Americans are asking “How could this have happened?” The failure of federal law enforcement authorities to effectively defend the US Capitol was a disaster of monumental proportions. Members of Congress—and the rest of us–were stunned at the sight of rioters sitting in the Senate Chamber and even at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s personal desk in her Capitol office. Yet another mob member carried a Confederate flag through the Rotunda.

The most precious gem of American democracy has always been the peaceful transfer of power that occurs with the election of a new president. George Washington set the precedent for this American tradition when he voluntarily relinquished power at the conclusion of his second term.

But when that tradition is rejected by the President, and his supporters begin to riot at the US Capitol, whose job is it to restore the order?

That is the question America has been asking since Wednesday afternoon.

The calamitous events were set in motion when President Donald Trump coaxed supporters via Twitter to come to the Capitol to “March for Trump,” and then when they did, delivered a speech packed with heated rhetoric to a large crowd of his supporters at the Ellipse. He urged them to march to the Capitol, telling them, “We will never give up, we will never concede,” and “I’ll be there with you.”

He wasn’t there though. Instead, he watched the fiasco he created on TV.

And even once the rioting had started, the President threw familiar red meat to his supporters, repeating, in a video he posted, false claims of a stolen election and asserting that “there’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened. Where they can take [the election] away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country” — a feeble attempt to end the chaos. In the final weeks of his single-term presidency, the old MAGA slogan had finally morphed into “Stop the Steal.”

The President’s incendiary speech, along with his inflammatory warmup show featuring Rudolph Giuliani and Donald Trump Jr., slowly but surely turned an angry campaign crowd of thousands into a dangerous mob that would later attack and take over the US Capitol.

The actions of the mob in storming the Capitol led to the death of a woman as Capitol police unsuccessfully attempted to mount a defense.

The inability of police forces of the most powerful nation in human history to adequately protect the Capitol building from an angry mob seems inconceivable. Where were the Secret Service, the FBI, the National Guard, not to mention the nation’s powerful armed forces?

In fact, the responsibility of protecting Congress and the buildings on Capitol Hill falls to the largely unknown Capitol Police, rather than any of the more famous law enforcement agencies and assorted military forces. The Secret Service probably had agents in the Capitol at the time of the mob attack, but only to protect Vice President Mike Pence. The FBI and National Guard, as well as local Washington, DC police are only available in a backup capacity. Traditionally our well-equipped armed forces protect the nation from foreign rather than domestic threats.

Wednesday, though, was one of those rare occasions when the use of federal troops to restore order would have been fully justified. After all, the nation’s capital was under attack by a mob seeking to stop the official certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. The President, however, displayed no real desire to suppress the disgraceful rampage of his MAGA army with federal troops. The Capitol Police appeared to be heavily outnumbered and completely unprepared to protect the Capitol.

The Capitol Police, founded by an act of Congress in 1828, has grown through the years to a force of more that 2,000 officers supported by more than 350 civilian workers. It is roughly the size of the Boston Police Department and defends Congressional facilities in all 50 states, in all American territories and in some foreign nations. Congressmen travel a lot. The police force is managed entirely by Congress and the Capitol Police Board, unlike most other federal police forces, which operate under the supervision of the Executive branch of government. I am sure Congress and the nation would like to know how a 2,000-person police force trained and funded to protect Congress and the Capitol was successfully sneak-attacked by a bunch of Trump supporters, many of whom were dressed in Halloween-worthy red MAGA costumes.

After all, the Trump mob’s intention to gather had been widely reported, the President’s rally speech was televised and Vice President Pence was presiding over the presidential electoral vote certification in the Senate. These events should have suggested that trouble was brewing. If the Capitol Police needed backup — and they obviously did — the Washington DC cops and their Maryland brethren were readily available, as was the National Guard. It was too little, too late — though a heroic effort — when Mayor of Washington Muriel Bowser declared a curfew and nearby states sent their police to assist in quelling the uproar.

The Capitol Police will have a lot of explaining to do. But the sad truth here is that the Capitol Police were overwhelmed by the size and determination of the Trump mob. Presumably, they are more accustomed to dealing with polite tourists visiting the nation’s capital than an out-of-control, conspiracy loving, Trump MAGA riot. That presumption is the only way one could avoid being critical of the Capitol Police for having failed to properly prepare for yesterday’s catastrophe.

Police can contingency-plan for a lot of things, but it is a sad day in America when the Capitol Police have to plan for an attack enabled by a sitting president. But times have changed, and even when Trump is finally gone, security threats to the Capitol will remain and possibly intensify given the successful invasion executed yesterday. The Capitol Police had better get its act together so that George Washington’s example of the peaceful transfer of American presidential power can be passed on to future generations.