Examining the U.S. Capitol Attack

On January 6, 2021, a mob breached the U.S. Capitol in the most significant assault on American democracy in generations. This landmark bipartisan Senate report reconstructs the failures of that day through exclusive testimony, internal documents, and communications, exposing how intelligence warnings were dismissed, security protocols broke down, and law enforcement was overwhelmed by a violent crowd. The investigation traces the chain of command through the Capitol Police, the Capitol Police Board, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense, revealing a cascade of miscommunication and institutional blindness. It documents the planning failures that left the Capitol unprotected despite mounting evidence of an imminent threat, and the response delays that allowed chaos to unfold for hours. This is not merely an accounting of what went wrong, but a reckoning with the fragility of democratic institutions and the question of whether America will learn from its near-death experience. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how close the republic came to a constitutional crisis, and what it will take to ensure it never happens again.