John,

We are still processing the violence at the Capitol last week, and just how close our democracy came to a total breakdown.

Millions of Americans watched the armed insurrection play out in real time. And millions of Americans deserve answers about why the planned protest descended into violent chaos, and why the mob was allowed to storm the Capitol, fly confederate flags, force legislators into hiding, then freely walk away six hours later.

CREW launched a wide-ranging investigation to understand exactly what went wrong, and we will leave no stone unturned until we expose all the facts.

The delayed response from law enforcement stood in sharp contrast to other protests held at the Capitol, and was particularly frustrating given the highly militarized response to racial justice protests last summer in Washington, D.C. and around the country. Many officers responded heroically, but failure to implement a quick and effective law enforcement response overall left legislators, our democratic institutions, and those officers who did respond all in intolerable danger.

We know that law enforcement can respond quickly and strongly when they want to, so why didn’t they this time? Was the government caught without a plan? Were D.C. and the federal government unable to coordinate? Or worse: did the federal government, at President Trump’s direction, know the threat was real but intentionally hold back resources that could have prevented the insurrection?

We have lots of questions, and we are already working on getting answers from both the federal government and the city of Washington, D.C.

Many of our questions have to do with the failed response from the U.S. Capitol Police, but unfortunately, they are part of the legislative branch and are not subject to public records requests. Reforming this transparency gap should absolutely be a priority in the new Congress. In the meantime, we will continue pushing for answers with the requests that we sent to nine other agencies, many of whom may have communicated or coordinated with the Capitol Police.

Law enforcement’s delayed response to the pro-Trump mob last week put our democracy in danger and resulted in at least five deaths. There must be accountability. As always, we’re investigating and will report back when we learn more.

Thank you for standing with us,


Noah Bookbinder
Executive Director, CREW

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