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Among the most shocking images that emerged from Wednesday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol were members of the pro-Trump crowd waving baseball bats and carrying “Keep America Great” banners unleashed on the inaugural platform on the western front of the building where Donald Trump was sworn in four years ago.
The sight of rioters fleeing amid clouds of tear gas at the very spot where their beloved leader has sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States” was not only symbolically frightening. . He pointed to the enormous security challenge now facing the US government as it heads towards the next inauguration – that of Joe Biden – days away.
As with any modern day inauguration, Biden’s rise to the presidency on January 20 has been declared a “special national security event.” This gives it the highest level of security preparedness, with all the phenomenal firepower that federal agencies led by the Secret Service and the FBI can muster.
As a result of the Capitol attack, this already high level of security is now significantly increased. The risk that the new president and vice president, three former presidents, the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court and most members of Congress – all of whom are expected to attend the inauguration – will be exposed to repeated attack by Trump on the crowd prompted is beyond contemplation.
“We’re going to have to have major and major reviews of what’s happened and the changes that have been made in terms of strengthening security,” Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator who sits on the congressional joint committee responsible, told CBS News. to supervise the inauguration ceremonies.
Hours after Wednesday’s carnage, this reinforcement was already in sight. A 7-foot-high “non-scalable” fence is erected in a giant circle around Capitol Park where it will remain for at least 30 days.
A state of emergency has been declared in Washington DC which will last until the day after the inauguration. More than 6,200 members of the National Guard will be in the city by this weekend, according to Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The struggle to increase security is the realization that what happened on Wednesday amounts to a security failure of immense proportions. The Capitol Police Chief and the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms both resigned as a result.
But the phrase “security failure” itself fails to come close to the threat contained in the storming of the Capitol. The most dangerous aspect was not in the crowd itself, but in who stood behind them.
Never before has the sitting president incited his supporters to attack the heart of American democracy.
As Michael Chertoff, the former Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, put it: “What Donald Trump has done is a betrayal of public trust and a violation of his oath of office. . There is no doubt that what we have seen this week was prompted by the rhetoric he has been using now for weeks and which has inspired and mobilized right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists.
Chertoff compared the riot on Capitol Hill to September 11. “On September 11, we feared that one of the planes would hit the Capitol building. In this case, the Capitol building was hit. It was a domestic terror and absolutely shocking.
Chertoff played a central role in the preparations for Barack Obama’s first inauguration in January 2009. This event posed its own enormous challenges, given Obama’s status as the first black president in a country with a long history of racial violence amplified by a crowd of nearly 2 million people. people who gathered in Washington to cheer him on.
But he said the nature of the threat had changed dramatically since then. The focus has shifted from planning foreign terrorism on large-scale attacks like 9/11 to domestic incitement channeled through social media.
“Getting people to embrace conspiracy theories or ideological extremism, and encourage them to use whatever they have on hand to commit a terrorist act.” This creates another kind of security problem – you have to look for a lot of different types of people and threats. “
The change presents the Secret Service with a difficult task, Chertoff said. “As we unfortunately now know, there are people who are ready to engage in domestic terrorism. Unlike dealing with foreign terrorists you can kick out of the country, in this case you don’t know if your neighbor might be a threat. “
A boon has been handed to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and the Secret Service as they seek to bring this year’s inauguration under control from an unexpected quarter – the pandemic.
Roy Blunt, the Republican Senator who chairs the congressional committee preparing for the inaugural ceremonies, estimated that the number of attendees who will be allowed in the secure perimeter areas at the inauguration will be drastically reduced to less than 3,000 from 200,000 approximately that are normally included.
With these numbers drastically reduced, the key will be to keep anyone who has not been fully vetted away from the newly installed president and vice president.
Given the magnitude of the resources available to the world’s most powerful government, this task should not be overwhelming. But Chertoff warns that the inauguration will only be the beginning.
“There will be a lingering challenge over the next few months, depending on how active Donald Trump is when he is not in power, in terms of domestic terrorism inspired directly by him or by right-wing extremist groups and conspirators. . This will be the security challenge for the foreseeable future. “
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