Domestic darkness An insider's account of the January 6 Insurrection, and the future of right-wing extremism

Farnam, the former assistant and then acting director of the U.S. Capitol Police's intelligence division, debuts with an insightful account of the January 6 Capitol attack. After 13 years with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Farnam landed the assistant director job shortly before the 2020 presidential election. She found a mess--the Capitol Police had not implemented long--called for reforms to address such endemic problems as its flawed procedures for disseminating information and collecting and evaluating intelligence. According to Farnam, her improvement efforts encountered resistance from an organizational culture "that prized silence over sharing." The department's weaknesses, she points out, were on full display on the day of the insurrection. Though her intelligence assessment of the planned MAGA rallies, circulated a few days earlier, had noted that "Congress itself is the target," Capitol Police chief Steven Sund did not call upon all of his available resources; by not canceling leaves, his force was at half-strength. Recounting numerous other missteps, Farnam makes the terror of that day palpable. She's also candid about her own mistakes, including her misjudgment in entering into a relationship with a law enforcement official who ended up federally charged for leaking information to the leader of the Proud Boys. It's a noteworthy addition to the growing shelf on January 6. (Jan.)

The former assistant director of intelligence for the Capitol Police offers an inside view of the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Farnam, who came to the force shortly before the mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, was well trained in intelligence gathering. Not long after she arrived, she began to hear murmurs, and she knew what she and her fellow officers were up against, "what kind of people made up that crowd…the extremist groups they belonged to, the bizarre and far-reaching conspiracies they believed in, the hatred that drove them." Yet senior officers within the force ignored the alarms she raised and did so even long after the fact, discounting her because she was a woman in what was perceived to be the man's world of law enforcement and because she didn't come from a police background. Moreover, she writes, the USCP held to an ethos of secrecy. "I was told on more than one occasion that I was not allowed to share any information or documents with outside agencies," Farnam writes, in part because the legislative branch wasn't subject to Freedom of Information Act inquiries. The politics of the place, the author makes clear, are as divisive among the police as among legislators. Running down the long list of perpetrators on Jan. 6, Farnam also plainly demonstrates that some police officers served as conduits of information to the crowd. She closes with a set of recommendations for a future USCP that's more attentive to intelligence matters. "Work with other governments to fight hate and track extremism, including designating more groups as terrorist organizations," she urges, while calling for harsher penalties for those who commit violence at political protests and those in power who--and here she names names--abet them. Politics watchers will find this portrait of an agency in need of reform alarming--and most urgent. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.