You and this commentator are about two years too late with your epiphanies. There was a massive intelligence failure by the Capitol Police in regard to the insurrection. But saying that the rioters were invited in is like saying the Japanese were invited in at Pearl Harbor or Hamas was invited into Israel last month. Three months after the insurrection, the Inspector General published a scathing report on the subject and the Capitol Police Chief announced his resignation on January 7. Here's excerpts by a reporter on site that day:
A Damning New Report Finally Explains the Strangest Thing I Saw Inside the Capitol Riot
When I walked toward the Capitol on Jan. 6 alongside Donald Trump’s supporters and heard some of them had breached the building ahead, I expected the situation to escalate sharply. I expected police in military gear and a response as aggressive as I’ve come to anticipate covering and observing protests over the past year, where a single water bottle thrown at a cop line can bring a volley of tear gas and percussion grenades in retaliation. Instead, I easily walked into the Capitol perimeter. At the entrances to the building, there were a few Capitol Police officers helplessly trying to hold a line at the doors, but they were vastly outnumbered. The officers had somehow gotten the doors back closed, but within minutes, rioters were easily pushing past them again. Once I was inside, too, I saw no officers at all for a stretch, as rioters plundered and destroyed furniture. When I did, it was even more surreal: They looked as if they were there loitering themselves. Some were equipped with riot gear, others not, but most just stood there and watched. Some rioters stopped to ask them for directions. In one of the only direct interactions I saw, a Capitol officer asked a rioter to put out a cigarette, then walked away.
I’d never seen law enforcement show this level of restraint at any protest, much less a riot. And now we know why. A damning new report by the Capitol Police’s own inspector general, Michael A. Bolton, presented at a Capitol Hill hearing today, portrays a police force that recklessly disregarded intelligence and hobbled its own response at every turn. Bolton found that Capitol Police leadership dismissed threat assessments and forbade rank-and-file officers from appropriately responding to the threat. The New York Times reviewed a copy of the document and reported that the Capitol Police’s own intelligence warned three days before that “Congress itself is the target on the 6th.” There were warnings about who would be in the crowd: “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike.” Bolton’s report also unearthed pre-insurrection warnings from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, which had relayed to the Capitol Police that a map of the Capitol’s tunnel system had turned up on pro-Trump message boards.
But the 104-page report found that, rather than ramp up security, the officers on duty were ordered to carry only limited riot-prevention equipment and to not carry stun grenades. Bolton wrote that “heavier less-lethal weapons were not used that day because of orders from leadership.” He added that the unit was “operating at a decreased level of readiness as a result of a lack of standards for equipment” that diminished “operational readiness.” Even without this new report, it was obvious the Capitol Police should have done more. Counterextremism experts had been ringing the alarm bells for months. Trump’s most fervent supporters had become progressively more radicalized in plain sight. But the report shows just how negligent Capitol Police brass really were ahead of the riot—which, as we’ve seen through footage and in report after report, nearly proved far more deadly than it ultimately did.
What is new here is the clear picture of just how badly the police leadership failed its own officers, too, the ones I saw bewildered behind the doors and in hallways. Bolton reported that some of the equipment issued to the police was faulty or expired. Some shields “shattered upon impact” because they were improperly stored. Some didn’t have shields at all because they were locked away on a bus. The civil disturbance unit, an apparently unpopular post tasked with containing large crowds, “was consequently required to respond to the crowd without the protection of their riot shields.” One rioter who dragged a Capitol officer down the steps and into the mob to be pummeled was famously quoted as saying, “I fed him to the people.” Now we know who allowed him to be fed upon.
Poorly informed, poorly equipped, poorly trained, and poorly led Capitol Police didn't handle the situation well. Many of those inside tried to defuse the situation and get the rioters outside as best they could. It's hard to know what type of irreparable damage to the artwork and furnishings in the Capitol might have resulted had the situation got really ugly inside as it did outside. A lot of that footage shows they were successful in calming down the same people who had been trying to break down the Capitol doors minutes before and getting a lot of them out of the building or away from some sensitive areas while Congress was still present.
And in case you've forgotten, their goal wasn't some sort of armed coup. It was to disrupt the certifying of the election results so they would be thrown back to the states to determine, where presumably, Trump thought he could get a better deal.
Again, the most telling evidence of what really occurred is in the subsequent court records. Over 1,000 people have been arrested so far in connection with the insurrection. Hundreds have pled guilty or been convicted. Several of the defendants raised the same claims that commentator did, that they thought they had been invited in. By my count, only two defendants have been acquitted so far.
