It has been nearly two months since a mob of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol. The building is surrounded by a fence with barbed wire and patrolled by 5,200 National Guard members, and yet there is no active threat. There’s no reason for this to continue.
March 4 came and went, and the little-hyped second invasion by QAnon conspiracy theorists was nowhere to be seen. There has been no threat to the Capitol since that initial mob on Jan. 6, when failures to prepare properly for an agitated crowd left officers overwhelmed.
Somehow, those failures have led to the Capitol becoming a militarized zone. U.S. Capitol Police has inexplicably requested a 60-day extension of the National Guard mission, which the Department of Defense should reject. It also wants some level of permanent fencing, an idea that Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has rightly criticized.
This is security theater, a waste of time for members of the National Guard and a waste of resources to the tune of $483 million, with an additional $2 million per week in fencing costs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been humoring these ridiculous measures, saying that the National Guard should remain there “as long as they are needed,” not dismissing the idea that they could still be there in May.
The National Guard is no longer needed. It isn’t there to protect the Capitol anymore; it’s there to protect the jobs of Capitol Police leadership and other law enforcement officials who failed to prepare adequately for Jan. 6.
The House of Representatives suspended its meetings Thursday, though Pelosi said that had nothing to do with the alleged threat. The Senate still convened. Both chambers know that the current state of the Capitol is an overreaction. The Capitol’s top law enforcement officials answer to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. They should end this charade.
