2021 Capitol Building Attack

The 2021 Capitol Building Attack, also known as 1/6, was a riot and terrorist attack against the 117th United States Congress at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. It was carried out by a mob of supporters of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, in an attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Some rioters had earlier planned aggressive action  and the riot led to the evacuation and lockdown of the Capitol, and five deaths.

Called to action by Trump, thousands of his supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., on January 5 and 6 in support of his claim that the 2020 election had been "stolen" from him, and to demand that Vice President Mike Pence and Congress reject President-elect Joe Biden's victory. On the morning of January 6, at a "Save America" rally on the Ellipse, Rudy Giuliani called for "trial by combat"; Donald Trump Jr. threatened the president's opponents by saying "we're coming for you", having previously called for "total war"; and Trump repeated his false claims about election irregularities and told the crowd to "fight like hell". At the president's encouragement, thousands of the crowd then walked to the Capitol, where a joint session of Congress was beginning the Electoral College vote count to formalize Biden's victory.

Many of the crowd at the Capitol, some of whom had gathered earlier, breached police perimeters and stormed the building. Congress was in session when the protestors stormed the building, and an attempt was made to evacuate the senators and congresspersons. Although some, including Vice President Mike Pence managed to evacuate, rioters stormed the Senate floor before most could leave. The rioters sought out anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats. Police fired shots and attempted to stop the protestors, but were overpowered.

Many of the rioters attacked the Senators and Congresspersons. Rioters shouted "stop the steal" and called Democrats and Republicans such as Mitt Romney "traitors". Several tried to leave the room, but only a few succeeded. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recalled seeing many rioters shoot into the crowd. 26 congresspersons and senators were confirmed dead after the riot, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who had recognized Joe Biden as the winner of the election, and Senate minority whip Dick Durbin. The crowd was eventually dispersed by police officers.

The attack was condemned by President-elect Biden and world leaders around the world. There were 37 casualties in total, including the 26 congresspersons, 6 police officers, 1 national guardsman, and 4 rioters.

The attack is seen as the first phase of the 2021 QAnon conflict, sometimes referred to as the QAnon War.

Planning and background
While there had been other instances of violence at the Capitol in the 19th and 20th centuries, historians called this event the most severe assault since the 1814 burning of Washington by the British Army during the War of 1812.

The Associated Press attributed the extremism that fueled the 2021 riot to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns. Widespread frustrations and acts of defiance towards the lockdown orders by individuals had allowed far-right groups such as white supremacists and the American militia movement to recruit more people, and also led to more rapid radicalizations through social media.

On November 7 (4 days after Election Day), Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, and defeated the incumbent Republican president Donald Trump. Before, during, and after the counting of votes, Trump and other Republicans attempted to overturn the election, falsely claiming widespread voter fraud in five swing states that Biden won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Actions undertaken by Trump to try to overturn the results included filing at least 60 lawsuits, including two brought to the Supreme Court, that sought to nullify election certifications and void votes cast for Biden in each of the five states (all but one being defeated for lack of evidence or standing); mounting campaigns to pressure Republican-controlled state legislatures to nullify results, by replacing slates of Biden electors with those declared to Trump, and/or manufacture evidence of fraud (which would likely violate election tampering statutes enacted by the states); and demanding lawmakers investigate supposed election "irregularities", or conduct signature matches of mail-in ballots (regardless of efforts already undertaken). Trump also personally inquired about, but did not act upon, invoking martial law to "re-run" the election in the swing states that Biden won (which would violate federal law prohibiting election oversight by the U.S. military, and likely be considered an unconstitutional suspension of civil liberties) and hiring a special counsel to find incidences of fraud (even though federal and state officials have concluded that such cases were very isolated or non-existent).

Congress was scheduled to meet on January 6, 2021, to count the results of the Electoral College vote and certify the winner, typically a ceremonial affair. Trump had spent previous days suggesting that Vice President Mike Pence should stop Biden from being inaugurated, which is not within Pence's constitutional powers as vice president and president of the Senate. Trump repeated this call in his rally speech on the morning of January 6. The same afternoon, Pence released a letter to Congress in which he stated he could not challenge Biden's victory.

Planning of the rally
Trump announced plans for a rally before the January 6 vote count to continue his challenge to the validity of several states' election results. On December 18, Trump announced on Twitter, "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!" The "March to Save America" and rally that preceded the riots at the Capitol were largely organized by Women for America First, a 501(c)(4) organization chaired by Amy Kremer, co-founder of Women for Trump. In late 2020 and early 2021, Kremer organized and spoke at a series of events across the country as part of a bus tour to encourage attendance at the January 6 rally and support Trump's efforts to overturn the election result. Women for America First invited its supporters to join a caravan of vehicles traveling to the event. Event management for Trump's speech was carried out by Event Strategies, a company founded by Tim Unes, who worked for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Ali Alexander on December 15, 2020, promoting the objection to counting electoral votes for Biden on January 6, 2021 Ali Alexander, a right-wing political activist who took part in organizing the rally and expressed support for the storming as "completely peaceful", was reported as saying in December that Representatives Paul Gosar (R–AZ), Andy Biggs (R–AZ) and Mo Brooks (R–AL) were involved in the planning of "something big". "We're the four guys who came up with a January 6 event," he said. According to Alexander, "It was to build momentum and pressure and then on the day change hearts and minds of Congress peoples who weren't yet decided or who saw everyone outside and said, 'I can't be on the other side of that mob.'" His remarks received more scrutiny after the events of January 6, causing Biggs to respond with a statement denying any relationship with Alexander. The Washington Post wrote that videos and posts were shown earlier connections between Alexander to the three members of congress.

The rioters openly planned to disrupt the counting of Electoral College ballots for several weeks prior to the event, and called for violence against Congress, Pence, and law enforcement. Plans were coordinated on "alt-tech" platforms distinct from larger social media platforms such as Reddit or Twitter, which had implemented bans to censor violent language and images. Websites such as TheDonald.win (a successor to the Reddit forum r/The_Donald), social networking service Parler, chat app Telegram, Gab, and others, were used to discuss previous Trump rallies and made plans for storming the Capitol. Many of the posters planned for violence prior to the event, with some individuals discussing how to avoid police on the streets, which tools to bring to help pry open doors, and how to smuggle weapons into Washington D.C. There was also discussion of their perceived need to attack law enforcement. Following clashes with Washington D.C. police during protests on December 12, 2020, the Proud Boys and other far-right groups turned against supporting law enforcement. At least one group, Stop the Steal, posted on December 23, 2020, its plans to occupy the Capitol with promises to "escalate" if met with opposition from law enforcement. Discussions on multiple sites talked very graphically and explicitly about "war", physically taking charge at the event, and killing politicians, including a request for opinions about which politician should be hung first (with a GIF of a noose).

Funding and donations
Protesters outside the Capitol, Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said his media company paid $500,000 to book the Ellipse for the pro-Trump rally immediately preceding the riots, and claimed that the Trump White House asked him to lead the march to the Capitol. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, said on Twitter that Turning Point had sent over 80 buses to the Capitol. Other people attempted to raise funds in December via GoFundMe to help pay for transportation to the rally, with limited success. An investigation by BuzzFeed News identified more than a dozen fundraisers to pay for travel to the planned rally. GoFundMe subsequently deactivated several of the campaigns after the riot, but some campaigns had already raised part or all of their fundraising goals prior to deactivation.

Prior intelligence and concerns of violence
In the days leading up to the storming, several organizations that monitored online extremism had been issuing warnings about the event. On December 21, 2020, a U.K. political consultant who studies Trump-related extremism tweeted a forecast of what the planned event of January 6 would become, including deaths. On December 29, 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued at least one bulletin to law enforcement agencies across the country, warning of the potential of armed protesters targeting legislatures. Prior to January 6, 2021, the local Joint Terrorism Task Force was notified by the FBI of possible impending violence at the Capitol. The Washington Post reported an internal FBI document on January 5 warned of rioters preparing to travel to Washington, and setting up staging areas in various regional states. The document used the term "war" to describe the rioters' motive, which mentioned specific violence references, including the blood of Black Lives Matter and Antifa members. However, the FBI decided not to distribute a formal intelligence bulletin. Some security specialists later reported they had been surprised that they hadn't received information from the FBI and DHS before the event. Later reflections about the intelligence failures revealed that surprise that no threat assessments had been issued, with possible causes for the failure related to DHS personnel changes and law enforcement biases.

The Anti-Defamation League published a January 4 blog post warning about violent rhetoric being espoused by Trump supporters leading up to the Electoral College count, including calls to violently disrupt the counting process. The post said that it was not aware of any credible threats of violence, but noted that "if the past is any indication, the combination of an extremist presence at the rallies and the heated nature of the rhetoric suggests that violence is a possibility." Also on January 4, British security firm G4S conducted a risk analysis, which found that there would be violent groups in Washington, D.C., between January 6 and Inauguration Day based on online posts advocating for violence. Advance Democracy, Inc., a nonpartisan governance watchdog, found 1,480 posts from accounts related to QAnon that referenced the events of January 6 in the six days leading up to it, including calls for violence.

After the event members of the Oath Keepers anti-government paramilitary group were indicted on conspiracy charges for allegedly staging a planned mission in the Capitol.

Police preparations
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser requested on December 31, 2020, that District of Columbia National Guard troops be deployed to support local police during the anticipated demonstrations. In her request, she wrote that the guards would not be armed and that they would be primarily responsible for "crowd management" and traffic direction, allowing police to focus on security concerns. Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller approved the request on January 4, 2021. The approval activated 340 troops, with no more than 114 to be deployed at any given time. Three days before the riots, the Department of Defense twice offered to deploy the National Guard to the Capitol, but were told by the United States Capitol Police that it would not be necessary.

Three days before the storming, a 12-page report from the Capitol Police's intelligence unit described that Congress would be the target on the day of the Electoral College vote counting, but the report was apparently not shared widely.

Two days before the storming, Bowser announced that the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) would lead law enforcement for the event, and would be coordinating with the Capitol Police, the U.S. Park Police, and the Secret Service. (Jurisdictionally, MPD is responsible for city streets of the National Mall and Capitol area, whereas the Park Police are responsible for the Ellipse (the site of Trump's speech and rally that day), the Secret Service is responsible for the vicinity of the White House, and the Capitol Police is responsible for the Capitol complex itself). "To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD if such plans are underway," Bowser wrote in a letter to the United States Department of Justice, and reproduced this language in a Tweet.

Also on January 4, Capitol Police chief Steven Sund was refused additional National Guard support by the then-House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul D. Irving and then-Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael C. Stenger. The FBI spoke to over a dozen known extremists and "was able to discourage those individuals from traveling to D.C.", according to a senior FBI official. The FBI shared information with the Capitol Police in advance of the protest.

Robert Contee, the acting Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, said after the event that his department had possessed no intelligence indicating the Capitol would be breached. Capitol Police chief Sund said his department had developed a plan to respond to "First Amendment activities" but had not planned for the "criminal riotous behavior" they encountered. As a result, Capitol Police staffing levels mirrored that of a normal day and officers did not prepare riot control equipment. U.S. Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy said law enforcement agencies' estimates of the potential size of the crowd, calculated in advance of the event, varied between 2,000 and 80,000. On January 5, the National Park Service estimated that 30,000 people would attend the "Save America" rally, based on people already in the area.