What are we going to do about what’s happening in Congress today? If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us will do nothing. There are, granted, different varieties of nothing. And one of the privileges of being a political writer is that the varieties of nothing available for you to try are manifold. A perennial favorite is the essay or column urging the Republican Party to come to reason. Trump may be on his way out, but this genre will be with us probably forever—animated, as it is, by a seemingly boundless reserve of dishonesty. The Republican Party is wholly beyond redemption, and writers know it even if they aren’t willing to admit it to their readers or themselves. One can’t argue otherwise without employing distortions of reality that, while not as egregious as Trump’s, certainly mirror them. Then there are the broadsides against the political press. “This isn’t normal.” And it isn’t! “The papers and networks should stop equivocating.” They should! On Monday, for instance, readers of The New York Times were informed that “Mr. Trump’s fidelity to the concept of American democracy has long been debated.” It is worth asking, though, what actual effect we think reworking or removing sentences like this would have. Does our political future really rest with persuading the 17 people in this country who closely read The New York Times but also haven’t developed an opinion on Trump’s respect for democracy? This is where we are at the beginning of a new year and on the cusp of a new administration: There is, everywhere, a conviction that our leaders and institutions have failed us catastrophically. Also widespread is a refusal to take the implications of that failure seriously. One implication is this: Our problems probably won’t be solved by the people who caused them or allowed them to take root. Another is that most of our hopes probably lie in public action.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and an intelligence unit inside the Department of Homeland Security didn’t issue a threat assessment of the Jan. 6 pro-Trump protests that devolved into violence inside the Capitol, people briefed on the matter said.

One current Metro D.C. police officer said in a public Facebook post that off-duty police officers and members of the military, who were among the rioters, flashed their badges and I.D. cards as they attempted to overrun the building. “If these people can storm the Capitol building with no regard to punishment, you have to wonder how much they abuse their powers when they put on their uniforms,” the officer wrote.

President Donald Trump and top White House officials did little to check in on Vice President Mike Pence while he and members of his family were inside the US Capitol when Trump-backed rioters stormed the halls of Congress on Wednesday, a source close to the vice president tells CNN.

A US Capitol Police officer has died from events stemming from Wednesday's riot at the Capitol, three sources confirm to CNN, in which a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the building to stop the counting of electoral votes that affirmed President-elect Joe Biden's win.

Sources say Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, was shown on video surveillance footage exiting the Capitol on Dec. 21. Demonstrators gained access directly afterward, setting up a showdown.

Dramatic events generated questions about why the military remained on the margins of a well-publicized protest whose members made no secret of their desire to use force.

The owner of 8kun appears to have been in regular email contact with QAnon conspiracy enthusiasts and influencers, a recently discovered vulnerability in mail servers used by Watkins and a number of the websites he owns, has shown.

Three days before the pro-President Donald Trump riot at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. The police turned them down both times, according to a defense official and two people familiar with the matter.

James O’Keefe is the face and chief executive officer of the activist organization known as Project Veritas. He specializes in undercover audio recordings or videos that seek to reveal supposed dishonesty or corruption, usually by Democrats or organizations perceived to be liberal. His critics say his methods are deceitful and that his group peddles disinformation.

Here’s what you need to know about them and the movements they represent.

A 34-year-old Saskatoon man has been charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder in relation to the city's first homicide of 2021. [What appears to be Hollman's YouTube channel has posted a series of videos with titles like "Drain the Swamp" and "Adrenochrome Hops," a reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory. On camera, he declares "I am a Trump supporter and an anti-masker."]

The State Department fired a midlevel employee for daring to say that Trump was unfit to remain in office. There is no deus ex machina principled flotilla of Trump cabinet members coming to save the day. They signed on with an insurrectionist president and they’re ready to ride out the string. Anyone with a shred of principle (or at least the capability to try to save face), like Chao, is resigning, removing themselves from the 25th amendment decision. Schumer said that he and Nancy Pelosi tried to get Pence on the phone this afternoon; they waited on hold for 25 minutes and were finally told he wouldn't talk. The Trump cabinet mommy and daddy will not be walking through the door to save the day.

Participants in Goldman Sachs’s entrepreneur-training program received T-shirts with the words “Storm the Hill.” The bank is asking that they not wear them.

Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have surpassed the number of votes needed to avoid a recount in Georgia’s hard-fought Senate runoff elections, but the Republicans they’re replacing have yet to concede the election as absentee ballots continue to come in.

excuse me?

Insurrectionists made no effort to hide their intentions, but law enforcement protecting Congress was caught flat-footed.

Matt Gaetz had cited the story in Congress as supposed evidence that Antifa was involved in the Capitol assault. But the company says it’s “outright false.”

Police say an incendiary device was thrown from a moving vehicle on Sunday night, damaging a parked car. A short time later, a second explosion was reported a couple of miles away.

Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Philip Rucker shares the latest reporting on what's going on inside the Trump White House after the president encouraged a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill.