Almost 14 months after last year's Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, its police force remains a work in progress -- with much work needed before there is sufficient improvement, according to two new government watchdog reports.
The reports on the U.S. Capitol Police Department's response to the violent assault on democracy by supporters of former president Donald Trump found a variety of serious law enforcement weaknesses that persist more than a year later.
Until the Capitol Police Board more fully implements "countermeasures to mitigate risks" on Capitol Hill, a Government Accountability Office report says, the panel "is not fulfilling its responsibility in overseeing the Capitol Police's protection of Congress and the Capitol Building."
Separately, but on the same day last week, Michael Bolton, the Capitol Police inspector general, told a House Administration Committee hearing that although the force has "made security improvements throughout the Capitol complex, much work still needs to be addressed in relation to training, intelligence, cultural change and operational planning."
Bolton urged "an overall cultural change ... to move the department into a protective agency as opposed to a traditional police department." All Capitol Police training, "no matter what it is," he added, should be "driven by that mission of protection."
GAO's report highlighted several deficiencies within the police force and its oversight board both in relation to Jan. 6 and in its general planning for security at the Capitol, including:
• Protest planning on Jan. 6 "did not reflect the potential for extreme violence aimed at the Capitol and did not include contingencies for support from other agencies." Despite information that "protesters could be armed and were planning to target Congress, the Capitol Police's plans focused on a manageable, largely non-violent protest at the Capitol."
• The police received the assistance of about 2,000 personnel from other agencies on Jan. 6, but the police and its board "lacked clear, detailed procedures" on outside assistance.
• "The Capitol Police conducts regular security assessments of the Capitol complex and buildings, but it does so without a documented procedure to ensure completeness and consistency."
• Although the force "makes security recommendations, it does not have the authority to implement them." That rests with the Capitol Police Board, but it "does not have a process for formally considering or making decisions on the recommendations." That leaves the force and the board with "no assurance" they "are not overlooking potential security risks."
GAO made four recommendations on securing outside police assistance and managing risks. The department agreed with the recommendations, "which we have already addressed," it said in an email to The Washington Post.
The board, composed of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the architect of the Capitol, along with the police chief as a nonvoting ex officio member, took no position on the recommendations. A letter from the board included in the GAO report said the panel is "committed to implementing any physical security upgrades that will secure the safety of the Capitol complex."
The board did not respond to questions from The Post.
At the remotely conducted House hearing, Bolton said 39 of his office's 104 recommendations, made in eight "flash reports" on the attack that sought to overturn Trump's 2020 presidential election defeat, have been implemented. Out of 200 planned "security enhancements," the police department promised, he added, only 61 "have supporting documentation to support those enhancements that have occurred."
No congressional hearing about the insurrection would be complete, in this political environment, without Republican attempts to spread blame from Trump supporters to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
"The Capitol is no better prepared today than it was on January 6," said Rep. Rodney Davis, Ill., the top Republican on the committee. "And that failure rests squarely on the shoulders of Speaker Pelosi, Capitol Police leadership and the Capitol Police Board."
The committee chairwoman, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., cited "systemic deficiencies" within the police department but also paid respects to the "more than 140 law enforcement officers ... injured that day, many grievously."
"We can't forget that what we saw on January 6 was started by a lie," she said.