The report of the January 6 committee was at long last released today, after nearly two years of congressional hearings, interviews, and subpoenas. You’re going to hear a lot about how former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric inspired those who stormed the Capitol, about how he refused to acknowledge his election loss, that he pressured various officials to overturn the result, and that he egged on his followers and fanned the flames of violence. You will hear the top-line news that the committee has made unprecedented criminal referrals for Trump and others based on their conduct that day. All of this is true, of course, and important.

What you won’t hear about is how and why the law enforcement agencies who had ample notice that all of this would happen failed so spectacularly to protect the Capitol from what they thought could be a mass of armed, far-right militia members bent on carrying out violence.

This is not what happened on January 6, thankfully. The vast majority of those who stormed the Capitol weren’t members of far-right militias, most weren’t carrying firearms, and it’s not clear how many even knew they’d be storming the Capitol on the day, since even members of the Oath Keepers who were later charged with seditious conspiracy were found to have no such plans in advance. Instead, most were an eccentric fringe of rank-and-file conservatives and Trump supporters who’d been poisoned by endless waves of cable news bullshit about election fraud and had no idea what to do once they, to their own surprise, actually found themselves inside the building.