It was a long road from killing bugs to battling protesters on the front lines of Jan. 6, 2021.

As a young husband, Dennis Kelly was working as an exterminator to pay the bills when he decided to try to become a cop. He’d be good at it, he thought, and it sounded cool. His wife’s view was less rosy; her dad had been a chaplain for a police department, and police officers would come to their home to get counseling. She saw what they went through, what they grappled with afterward. But she supported her husband’s decision. 

Mr. Kelly took the New Jersey civil service exam and tried finding a job with local police departments, but some officer’s relative always seemed to get hired instead. So he got his start in a new federal detention center in Philadelphia. A year later, 9/11 hit. Law enforcement officers were in demand. He saw a “hot jobs” icon on a government website and clicked. It was a Capitol Police position. 

“I thought, ‘Oh, Capitol Hill – I’ll never get hired, but what the heck, I’ll apply for it,’” he recalls. Now a retired lieutenant, he still remembers the awe he felt when he first entered an area of the 200-year-old building closed to the public. And he recalls the sense of honor he felt in upholding fellow citizens’ First Amendment rights, no matter how tired his feet got on the 12-hour shifts.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Lt. Dennis Kelly, seen here with his wife, Katherine, in La Plata, Maryland. He retired from the Capitol Police in April 2022 after nearly two decades with the department. He led a Civil Disturbance Unit platoon on the West Front of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, helping to defend a key lower door against a second breach of the Capitol.

“Protesting is part of the American fabric, and I was always proud that I had a small part in making sure people had a right to say what they wanted to say,” says Lieutenant Kelly. That’s part of what hurt so much on Jan. 6, when protesters attacked him and his platoon on the West Front of the Capitol with flag poles, baseball bats, bear spray, bolts – anything they could get their hands on. “I felt like, ‘I’m helping you to protest and redress your government.’”

Like so many others, he was blindsided by the assault, carried out by some of the same kinds of people who usually waved “Back the Blue” flags and professed their love for police. 

Two years on from that unprecedented attack, the United States Capitol Police is striving to implement the lessons learned from Jan. 6 and become a more robust force. That includes improving intelligence capabilities and operational planning; distributing better equipment; boosting morale through pay raises and mental health and other wellness initiatives; and adding more officers to the roster. 

But there is concern that the Capitol remains vulnerable. Critics say political considerations have prevented a full examination and fixing of the systemic weaknesses that left the institution unprepared that day. Moreover, some say a deeper cultural shift is needed to protect the citadel of American democracy amid rising political violence and threats to lawmakers.  

“I think [Jan. 6] was a failure of imagination, clearly,” says Steven Rotkoff, who runs his own company helping organizations in their security planning and served on the Honoré commission recommending post-Jan. 6 improvements to Congress. “I think we still have this failure of imagination.”

Warnings unheeded

Shortly before noon on Jan. 6, Lieutenant Kelly and his Civil Disturbance Unit platoon arrived at the U.S. Botanic Garden, right near the West Front of the Capitol that looks down the Mall where Trump supporters had amassed a mile and a half away to hear the president speak. The platoon was about to don their riot gear when protesters started streaming over the bike-rack barricades on the West Front. Lieutenant Kelly and his officers rushed to defend the Capitol. There was no time to gear up. 

Julio Cortez/AP/File

Rioting supporters of President Trump try to break through a police barrier on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

How a ragtag band of protesters was able to storm one of the most iconic government buildings in one of the most heavily policed cities in America is still a matter of debate. Many blame an intelligence failure, but others say it didn’t require a special clearance to read then-President Donald Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet calling his supporters to Washington on the day Congress would be tallying the electoral votes: “Be there, will be wild!” he wrote. 

Mr. Trump’s claims of massive fraud had not stood up in court, and his pressure campaign on state legislators and election officials had failed to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Supporters saw it as a 1776 moment.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat on the House Administration Committee that oversees Capitol security, recalls sharing with the Capitol Police social media posts that seemed to suggest impending violence. “We got a lot of, ‘Don’t worry about it, everything is under control,’ ” she says. 

It wasn’t just her. 

On Dec. 24, the Secret Service got an emailed document titled “Armed and Ready, Mr. President,” detailing online responses to the president’s tweet. Many Trump supporters interpreted it as a call for armed revolt, according to the Jan. 6 select committee’s final report released late last month. “There is not enough cops in DC to stop what is coming,” said one.  

Jack Donohue, the head of Capitol Police intelligence, got the same document several days later – not from the Secret Service, but from a former colleague on the New York Police Department. A civilian tip warned the department, “I’ve also seen tweets from people organizing to ‘storm the Capitol’ on January 6^th .”

On Jan. 4, Mr. Donohue’s assistant director, Julie Farnam, warned some Capitol Police leaders, “It’s potentially a very dangerous situation.”  

The next day, the head of security for the Architect of the Capitol forwarded an alert to Capitol Police that an individual online was vowing that “we will storm the government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents.” 

“We get our President or we die,” read another post spotted by the FBI, which included perimeter maps of the Capitol.

None of this made it to the police on the front lines like Lieutenant Kelly and his platoon, who were left dramatically outnumbered. The morning of Jan. 6, only 50% of the Capitol Police force was on duty; by 2 p.m., shortly after the district’s Metropolitan Police Department had declared a riot, it rose to two-thirds. It still wasn’t enough; 12 minutes later, protesters breached the Capitol, interrupting the electoral vote count and causing police to hurriedly evacuate all lawmakers. 

“The National Guard should have been in place at 7 a.m.,” says Gus Papathanasiou, a Capitol Police officer who chairs the department’s labor union. “You don’t wait to bring in a relief pitcher in the ninth inning after you’ve been shelled with 20 runs in the first inning.”

Then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund did seek National Guard support several days before Jan. 6. But, he later told the Jan. 6 committee, the House sergeant-at-arms said it would be bad optics to have the military surrounding the Capitol as Congress counted electoral votes – a concern shared by Defense officials and Democratic staff. Chief Sund conceded he didn’t have the intelligence to back up his demand. In his book released this week, “Courage Under Fire,” the former chief said he never heard about the warnings that the FBI or even his own intelligence division had received. 

Erin Scott/The New York Times/AP/File

Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testifies before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Senate Rules and Administration joint hearing on Capitol Hill, Feb. 23, 2021, to examine the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Donell Harvin, who headed the district’s Fusion Intelligence Center at the time, acknowledges that the lack of coordination among various intelligence agencies left gaps. But there were still enough signs that bad things were coming. His own daughter asked him if it would be safe for her to go into work that day. 

“Shame on the people who organized, incited, pushed it, did it – but also, shame on the people who allowed it to happen,” says Dr. Harvin, now a professor at Georgetown University, who blames “cognitive bias” for the failure of law enforcement officers to see white conservative men as threats. “Can you imagine a bank heist being pulled, when the bank knew the robbers were coming weeks in advance?”

“Does anyone have a plan?”

As the riot erupted on Capitol Hill, Lieutenant Kelly’s wife, Katherine, got a text: “I’m praying for your husband.” She started watching TV and searching social media, hoping for a glimpse of her husband. A sign he was OK. 

Amid the melee, Lieutenant Kelly remembers the immense relief he felt when the Metropolitan Police Department showed up with reinforcements. An MPD commander told Capitol Police officers to lock their riot shields together. A report later detailed how little, if any, practice many of them had in using such equipment and weapons. 

Together, over hours of intense fighting and tear gas attacks, the police defended a key door on the lower level, preventing a second breach of the Capitol. Lieutenant Kelly calls it “a miracle.”

The Jan. 6 committee’s first hearing, in July 2021, focused on the heroism of law enforcement officers who held the line that day, bringing two Capitol Police officers and two MPD officers in to testify. Several had been defending the same door as Lieutenant Kelly. One, MPD Officer Michael Fanone, testified that as he was dragged into the crowd, he heard people yelling, “Kill him with his own gun,” and saw a rioter repeatedly lunging for it until others intervened. 

Courtesy of Lt. Dennis Kelly

Lt. Dennis Kelly, shown on a lunch break outside the Capitol. On Jan. 6, 2021, over hours of intense fighting, he and his officers helped defend a key door on the lower level, preventing a second breach of the Capitol. Lieutenant Kelly calls it “a miracle.”

But after the committee played visceral clips of the violence, none of the nine members asked any questions about whether police had received adequate training in riot tactics, or how they could be better prepared going forward. Its 845-page report primarily blames Mr. Trump, relegating law enforcement and intelligence failures to two appendices. 

The committee and its defenders say they didn’t want to come across as blaming the rank and file for what happened. That would be like blaming 9/11 on airport security officials, says Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey. “We didn’t say, ‘No, don’t look at Al Qaeda – look at the people who should have checked the hijackers’ bags.’”

Still, Mr. Papathanasiou, the chair of the Capitol Police union, says for many officers it felt like a "slap in the face" that the Jan. 6 committee hand-picked certain officers to tout as heroes. He also expresses frustration that the committee used them to support their narrative without looking at the bigger picture. “When you start using officers as political pawns, I think it’s wrong,” he says. 

He had been warning for years about lack of training, equipment issues, and low morale, and felt like no one cared. His biggest fear was something like Jan. 6 – or worse. He says he asked the chiefs over the years many times about contingency plans. And indeed, on Jan. 6, an officer asked, “Does anyone have a plan?”

Weeks later, the union organized a no-confidence vote against Capitol Police leaders. Some 92% voted against Yogananda Pittman, who oversaw the intelligence division, and 96% against Sean Gallagher, who oversaw the department’s Protective Services Bureau. 

Officers felt like, “They hung us out to dry,” says Mr. Papathanasiou, who also blames congressional leadership. “I’m just upset that there hasn’t been any accountability at the top.”

Chief Sund and both the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms resigned after Jan. 6. But Ms. Pittman was promoted to acting chief of Capitol Police for six months. She and Assistant Chief Gallagher, who oversaw the evacuation of lawmakers, remain in leadership, despite a scathing whistleblower letter asserting that their “leadership/intelligence failures” endangered officers’ lives and accused Congress of masking those failures. 

A Capitol Police spokesperson said that when the new chief, J. Thomas Manger, came on in July 2021, he decided to retain Ms. Pittman “to keep her experience and knowledge of the department” and “expand upon the improvements that were made immediately after January 6.” The spokesperson credited Deputy Chief Gallagher with implementing some of the most significant recommendations from Congress. 

Greg Nash/AP/File

Then-acting U.S. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing to examine the FY 2022 budget request for the Architect of the Capitol, Senate sergeant-at-arms, and the U.S. Capitol Police on April 21, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Even with two years of improvements, however, some say the Capitol remains a relatively soft target. Among them is GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy SEAL.

“If I were assigned to attack this place and harm people, it would be extremely easy,” he says. 

Mr. Rotkoff argues that Jan. 6 should prompt a reevaluation of the long-standing tradition of Congress being open to the American people. Just as the White House – where the public could once traipse through – now has a fence and more security protocols, Congress also needs to adapt to a new reality. Attackers learn from their failures, he notes, worrying that Jan. 6 could be akin to the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center that came eight years before 9/11.

A new threat landscape

In 2021, Capitol Police investigated 9,000 threats – more than double the number just four years prior. The hammer attack against then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their San Francisco home, and the attempted assault against New York congressman-turned-gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, are “sad reminders of how our social fabric is frayed,” testified Chief Manger last month before the Senate Rules Committee, which co-led a 2021 bipartisan report on Jan. 6 security failures. 

Providing additional security to lawmakers – and their families – will take more resources, he said. Though the budget has expanded from less than $100 million in the late 1990s to $708 million for fiscal year 2023, Capitol Police duties have expanded significantly to respond to the threat landscape.

But Daniel Schuman, policy director with the progressive organization Demand Progress, who has testified before Congress about the Capitol Police Board, says the problem is more structural than financial. 

The board is made up of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, both political appointees, and the Architect of the Capitol, a presidential appointee with a 10-year term. The inspector general for the Capitol Police is appointed by the board, but doesn’t have the authority to investigate it, and inspector general reports on the police force are not made publicly available. Moreover, neither chamber has traditionally held hearings with the full three-member board, but a recent change explicitly authorizes the House Administration and Senate Rules committees to jointly do so.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP/File

Serena Liebengood, widow of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howie Liebengood, former Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone, MPD Officer Daniel Hodges, Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, and Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn (left to right) listen as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing Oct. 13, 2022. Sergeant Gonell resigned his job in December 2022.

Mr. Schuman contends that the lack of transparency, independence, and accountability creates structural disincentives for reform.

The biggest problem is that there is no one entity or individual that has “uniform responsibility” for thinking ahead about how best to protect the complex, adds Mr. Schuman, who says he dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder from being there on 9/11 and is so concerned about security vulnerabilities that he has only been there a handful of times since Jan. 6.

“Nobody is in charge of the Capitol,” he says.

In a December 2021 hearing, Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton floated the idea of restructuring Capitol Police to more closely resemble a protective agency like the Secret Service, with one individual in charge of overall Capitol security and a chief overseeing day-to-day police operations. 

Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, for years the top Republican on the House Administration Committee that oversees Capitol security, told the Monitor last month that Chief Manger has put forward good solutions to manpower issues. Hundreds have left since Jan. 6, but the department met its goal of hiring 280 new recruits in fiscal year 2022, and is on track to meet that goal again in FY23. 

But Representative Davis said he was still disappointed in the Capitol Police Board’s lack of accountability and the structure that allows whichever party is in the majority to exert significant influence.

“No matter what the majority publicly says, they’re engaged in every detail of the security apparatus in and around the Capitol Complex every single day,” said Mr. Davis, who was originally nominated to be the top Republican on the Jan. 6 committee along with four GOP colleagues. But after Mrs. Pelosi vetoed two of them, all five boycotted the committee.

They released a report last month alongside the committee’s report, in which they assessed that the House sergeant-at-arms had “succumbed to political pressures” from then-Speaker Pelosi’s office and House Democratic leadership while largely sidelining GOP involvement in security decision-making. They also found that the efforts of Ms. Farnam, who was new to the department and had little previous intelligence experience, to reorganize the Capitol Police intelligence unit left it “ineffective during a critical period.” In addition, the report asserted that the Capitol Police had still not implemented important recommendations from oversight bodies. 

Representative Scanlon of the House Administration Committee is one of numerous lawmakers interviewed who cited improved intelligence sharing as the most significant change since Jan. 6. The Capitol Police spokesperson said other key issues, including equipment and operational planning, have been addressed. The inspector general’s roughly three dozen remaining recommendations, including building a new training facility and expanding protection for lawmakers, will require more time and resources.

Support for police

By 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, Lieutenant Kelly and his colleagues finally got a break. They hadn’t eaten all day. Pizza was on the way, someone said. He remembers waiting around for it to be delivered when he saw Officer Brian Sicknick collapse. The next day, Officer Sicknick died. Four other officers, one from MPD, would die by suicide in the coming days and months. More than 100 Capitol Police officers were injured. 

Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post/AP/File

A Capitol Police officer holds a program during a ceremony memorializing Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick in the Capitol rotunda, in Washington, Feb. 3, 2021.

On the second anniversary of the attack, President Biden posthumously awarded Officer Sicknick, along with six other members of the Capitol and Metropolitan Police, the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors. This week, Officer Sicknick’s family sued former President Trump and two rioters for at least $10 million in damages.  

At first, Lieutenant Kelly thought he was fine. In the intense days following the assault, his department put him up in an area hotel. His wife was staying with him there, worried about her husband. 

“My wife kept telling me – ‘You’re not OK, you need help,’” he says. The wake-up call came when he was in the car going to dinner with his family and wanted to suggest going to Japan Express but found he suddenly couldn’t talk. 

“I knew I had to go to any lengths to get myself better,” says Lieutenant Kelly.

He went to therapy at least weekly for eight months, but it wasn’t enough. That led him to enroll in a Texas treatment program on his own dime, which helped him – and, he hopes, can be made more widely available to other federal employees. 

He credits the Capitol Police with doing a lot to address trauma and boost morale at a time when it’s not popular to be a police officer. The department has made a multitude of wellness and mental health resources available, including a new program that provides confidential counseling to officers and their families. There are also peer support programs and two dogs, Lila and Leo, who make the rounds to relieve Capitol Police employees’ stress. And the department is working with the offices of the House and Senate chaplains to develop new resources for achieving “spiritual wellness.” 

Lieutenant Kelly is no longer walking those halls, though he still speaks fondly of them. He retired in April 2022 after nearly two decades with the department, the last nine of which he spent in a commuter marriage. This past summer, he and his wife went to a marriage retreat in Alaska for law enforcement officers and their spouses. It was life-changing, he says, sharing a photo of himself grinning with a freshly caught pike and pristine mountain forests in the background. 

“I’m so grateful I’ve gotten a second chance,” he says. 

He’s disappointed though, that the department has not provided retirees like him replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Capitol Police for their heroism on Jan. 6. He wrote a letter to Chief Manger a month ago, but has yet to hear back. He would pay for a replica medal himself, he says, but the Mint has run out. 

When asked whether he feels like Capitol Police leadership did right by him that day, there is a long pause. 

“Yeah, I do,” he says finally. “They really tried.”

Editor’s note: After publication, a Capitol Police spokesman said that current employees were informed through a Jan. 4 bulletin that replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal would be distributed to anyone serving on Jan. 6, 2021. He confirmed that this included retirees, and said he believed the department was in the process of reaching out to them. As of Jan. 9, Lieutenant Kelly had not yet heard from them.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/File

People line up at the entrance to federal court in Washington, Sept. 19, 2022. Doug Jensen, who was found guilty of five charges including assaulting a police officer, was sentenced to five years in prison for his part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Defendants found guilty of attacking officers that day have received some of the longest sentences.

Two years after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department has shifted its legal pursuit of riot participants to a new, more intensive level.

Federal prosecutors have not yet given any indication of when, or if, they will charge former President Donald Trump and top aides in connection with the attack. Most of the charges brought against the 950 or so defendants, at least the nonviolent ones, have been for minor offenses such as entering a restricted building or illegally demonstrating in the Capitol.

But in November Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group, and one of his subordinates were convicted of seditious conspiracy. It was the first time a jury had found that group planning was involved in the disruption of the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College votes.

Now the Justice Department is beginning another ambitious, multipart Jan. 6 prosecution, a seditious conspiracy trial against Enrique Tarrio, former Proud Boys national chairman, and four others from the far-right group.

Some Proud Boys played central roles in breaching the Capitol perimeter and the building itself. At the height of the battle one member texted Mr. Tarrio, asking, “Are we a militia yet?”

He answered with one word: “Yes.”

The Proud Boys are one of the key groups accused of preparing to assault the seat of U.S. democracy, says Jon Lewis, research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Their trial – now in jury selection – “is certainly another big test for the Justice Department,” says Mr. Lewis.

Since it began the investigation of the Capitol insurrection and the prosecution of those involved, the Department of Justice has characterized it as the largest such law enforcement action in the nation’s history. The scale is enormous: Thousands of people were allegedly involved in the melee, ranging from the many demonstrators who merely followed the crowd to a core group that had allegedly prepared for and facilitated illegal entry. On the second anniversary of the storming of the Capitol, here’s a snapshot of the legal landscape.

Noah Berger/AP/File

Jury selection continues this week for the seditious conspiracy trial of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, shown in Portland, Oregon, Aug. 17, 2019, and four lieutenants. Seditious conspiracy is a charge rarely seen in the modern era. Two Jan. 6 defendants have been found guilty of it so far.

Who’s been charged?

Over the past two years, more than 950 defendants have been arrested in conjunction with Jan. 6, according to a just-released accounting from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia.

“The Department of Justice’s resolve to hold accountable those who committed crimes on January 6, 2021, has not, and will not, wane,” says the D.C. attorney’s office.

Many of those arrested have faced only minor charges. Approximately 860 defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds. But for some, those charges are only a base line. Of those 860 defendants, 91 have also been charged with entering a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Some of the longest sentences have been reserved for the 25 people convicted so far of assaulting a police officer, with defendants being sentenced from four to 10 years in prison.

Prosecutors have also moved to hold a number of participants to account for more than simply their presence at the Capitol. More than 295 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing or impeding a federal proceeding, according to the Department of Justice. The counting of Electoral College votes was disrupted by the riot. Vice President Mike Pence and congressional members finished it later that night.

Approximately 484 Jan. 6 defendants have chosen to plead guilty. In part this is due to the open-and-shut nature of many of their cases. The Justice Department has amassed a trove of social media posts with pictures, words, and video that place people in the Capitol and show what they were doing at the time.

Forty individuals have been found guilty at trial. Only one has been acquitted. In April, a federal judge decided that Matthew Martin, a government contractor from New Mexico, was not guilty of four petty offenses related to Jan. 6. At trial Mr. Martin admitted that he had entered the Capitol that day, but insisted that two Capitol Police officers waved him through the door.

So far, almost 200 people have been sentenced to periods of imprisonment for their actions on Jan. 6. Thomas Webster, a retired New York police officer and Marine veteran, has received the longest sentence: 10 years for assaulting a police officer and engaging in violence with a dangerous weapon.

Like a significant number of Jan. 6 defendants, Mr. Webster has expressed remorse for his actions. At sentencing he said he had been swept up in politics and should never have traveled to Washington to protest the election.

“I wish the events of that horrible day had never happened,” he told the judge.

Meanwhile, some of the judges overseeing riot-related prosecutions have used their forums to expound in general on the dangers of Jan. 6.

In October, a U.S. district judge sentenced a Texas man who had joined the Capitol mob to 45 days in prison even though prosecutors had not asked for jail time. 

It is false to compare the Capitol rioters to the people who have demonstrated, mostly peacefully, for civil rights in recent years, said Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Doing so “ignores the very real danger that the Jan. 6 riots pose to the foundation of democracy,” she said.

Susan Walsh/AP/File

Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers militia, speaks outside the White House in Washington, June 25, 2017. He and Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, were both found guilty of seditious conspiracy, as well as other charges, in November related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Who’s been convicted?

The biggest Jan. 6 trial to date has undoubtedly been that of Oath Keeper leader Mr. Rhodes and his subordinates. In November, a jury delivered a mixed verdict, finding Mr. Rhodes and one aide guilty of seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, among other charges, though not guilty of two separate sedition charges. Three other Oath Keepers were found not guilty of sedition, but guilty of other felonies. Mr. Rhodes faces up to 20 years in federal prison on the seditious conspiracy charge alone.

The verdict appeared to reflect the jury’s judgment of culpability in the situation, said some legal experts, with leaders held most accountable. Though not a complete victory for the Justice Department, the verdict ratified prosecutors’ core contention: Mr. Rhodes and his group had a concrete plan to disrupt congressional proceedings in an attempt to block Mr. Biden from ascending to the presidency.

As part of their case, prosecutors showed the jury hundreds of encrypted text messages between Oath Keeper members discussing means of preventing the transfer of presidential power, and talking about wild conspiracy theories, such as a fear that Mr. Biden would hand control of the United States over to the United Nations.

The Proud Boys trial is the Justice Department’s next step up the prosecution ladder. Prosecutors will argue that five members of the group, including former leader Mr. Tarrio, similarly developed a plan to try to block the Electoral College vote-counting in Congress on Jan. 6.

Mr. Tarrio has depicted his group as more interested in partying than partisan warfare. He was not present in Washington on the day of the riot. He was arrested two days earlier on charges related to vandalizing property belonging to a historic Black church during a previous Washington visit. Ordered out of D.C., he left – but not before meeting with Oath Keeper leader Mr. Rhodes in an underground garage.

What comes next?

The Proud Boys trial in Washington is in its early stages. Jury selection should be wrapped up early next week. If convicted on the seditious conspiracy charge, Mr. Tarrio and his subordinates could face up to 20 years in prison.

For the Justice Department, the “Oath Keepers case was their biggest case to date, a significant win,” says Mr. Lewis of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

The Proud Boys prosecution presents similar questions and has similar stakes. It could be another step for the Justice Department in proving that the riot was the result of organized preplanning.

“But I think the bigger question is, what comes next?” Mr. Lewis says.

One answer to that could be more of the same – the Justice Department has vowed to continue its pursuit of individual Jan. 6 participants. Special counsel Jack Smith has the responsibility of weighing whether former President Trump and his top aides and advisers are charged in any way for trying to block the transfer of American power.

But in terms of trying to address the larger problem of extremism in America – the sort of force that drove a crowd of Americans into the Capitol two years ago – perhaps law enforcement needs to look down, not up.

Much of the domestic extremist violence in America is driven by individuals who self-radicalize, seizing on conspiracy theories and social media disinformation as explanations for their problems, says Mr. Lewis. 

Addressing that might require a broader approach than prosecuting and dismantling extremist groups.

“The lights on the dash are still red. You’re still seeing these false narratives spread,” says Mr. Lewis. 

As Joe Biden visits Mexico City Monday – the first foray by a U.S. president to the southern neighbor in nearly a decade – the prevailing perception of the U.S.-Mexico relationship is one of crisis, dysfunction, and danger.

The U.S.-Mexico border is the locus of a chaotic influx of migrants from across the Americas that shows no signs of abating. The opioid crisis that led to more than 100,000 American deaths last year is fueled by cheap pharmaceuticals like fentanyl smuggled north by Mexico’s drug cartels. Communities on the north side of the border complain that lax enforcement of environmental regulations to the south is fouling the region’s air and scarce water.

Yet at the same time, the U.S.-Mexico border and economic cooperation more broadly among North America’s three increasingly intertwined countries – the United States, Mexico, and Canada – are also setting the stage for an era of growth and rising prosperity, many international economists and regional experts say.

Post-pandemic, the global economy is shifting increasingly from globalization to what economists have dubbed “regionalization” – a tendency toward regional poles of production and investment, driven by everything from the disruption of supply chains to the U.S.-China trade war and environmental concerns.

The North American trade area is ideally positioned to capitalize, analysts say.

Decades of cooperation first formalized in the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and updated in 2018 in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) laid the groundwork for the three economic partners to take advantage of that trend as well as the so-called near-shoring of manufacturing jobs from China.

It is this mix of the everyday perception of regional crisis against a promising economic backdrop that President Biden will confront as he meets with the leaders of Mexico and Canada next week.

Crisis “obscuring” opportunity

“There are good things going on that over the long term can deliver growth and prosperity across North America, especially if the leaders can enhance existing regional cooperation in ways that will allow for taking greater advantage of global trends,” says Earl Anthony Wayne, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and now U.S.-Mexico public policy fellow at the Wilson Center.

But those positive trends could end up “obscured” by the alarming events and pressing “short-term problems” taking center stage as the North American leaders meet in Mexico City, he says.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

President Joe Biden speaks about U.S.-Mexico border security and enforcement at the White House in Washington, Jan. 5, 2023. In his remarks, he called the U.S. immigration system "broken." The president will stop Sunday in El Paso, Texas, on the border on his way to Mexico City.

“In the short term, migration and border management are the really big issues, but no one is coming up with good solutions and we are struggling to manage all the people coming up through Mexico,” Ambassador Wayne adds. “There are no easy solutions ... but the shortcomings in handling these critical border issues affect how all our peoples perceive the prospects for the North American community.”

Over their two days together, the three leaders will meet bilaterally, and then together for the traditional “tres amigos” summit. It’s at his bilateral sit-down with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that President Biden will take up what Ambassador Wayne describes as the “difficult short-term issues” – migration, crime, and the influx of fentanyl – centered on the border. The more long-term questions such as how to build a mutually beneficial environment for economic growth and what actions can help the three trade and investment partners benefit from the regionalization trend will fall to the trilateral summit.  

Mr. Biden is no stranger to border and hemispheric immigration issues, having served as President Barack Obama’s point man on those topics when he was vice president. But as president he has shown little interest in the border, regional experts say, even as the numbers of asylum-seekers crossing the border from Mexico has skyrocketed over the last year. As recently as last month, during a trip to Arizona, Mr. Biden said he would not be visiting the border because he had “more important things going on.”

In an apparent effort to correct that misstep, the president will stop Sunday in El Paso, Texas, on the border on his way to Mexico City. In a speech Thursday focused on immigration, he called the country’s immigration system “broken” – a characterization that became a Republican mantra during the midterm elections.

AMLO’s ideological bent

President López Obrador – widely known simply as AMLO for his initials – has not been averse to steps in Mexico to discourage the rising flow north of migrants from Central America, Venezuela, and Haiti, Mexican analysts say.

But where the leftist and socialist leader differs starkly from his North American partners is in his overt antagonism toward private enterprise and foreign direct investment, those analysts add. That orientation from the top has discouraged U.S. companies and limited Mexico’s potential as a rich beneficiary of the near-shoring of manufacturing from China to industrial parks closer to the U.S. market.

“López Obrador is a return to the old way in Mexico before the mid-1980s of seeing the proximity of the United States and the border not as an advantage to be exploited for the economic potential but as a burden,” says Luis Rubio, chair of the Mexico Evalua consultancy in Mexico City and an expert in U.S.-Mexico economic relations.

Marco Ugarte/AP/File

Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland (left); Mexico's top trade negotiator, Jesus Seade (center); and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer sign an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement at the national palace in Mexico City, Dec. 10. 2019. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (second from left, standing) was among those observing.

Despite AMLO’s ideological bent and actions discouraging private investment – reversing, for example, past administrations’ opening up of the state-run oil industry to foreign investment – he is nevertheless reaping some benefits from the global shift to near-shoring, Mr. Rubio says.

“The odd consequence is that he is benefiting from the regional cooperation and NAFTA/USMCA, which have as a main objective to separate political decisions from economic ones,” Mr. Rubio adds, “even as everything he is doing aims to discourage private investments and growth from foreign companies coming here.”

Global trade analysts had predicted a bonanza for Mexico as U.S. and other international companies shifted manufacturing out of China, beginning with President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and then as the pandemic’s impact on global supply chains deepened.

But the gold rush has yet to materialize. Mexico’s share of all manufactured goods imported to the U.S. between 2018 and 2021 remained nearly flat, according to a report from the international consulting firm Kearney. Countries benefiting from the U.S.-China trade war and near-shoring were mostly China’s low-cost competitors in Asia, including Vietnam, Taiwan, and increasingly India.

Shifting U.S. investment

At the same time, there are recent signs that the regionalization trend is building steam in North America.

In 2021 there was more U.S. investment in Mexico than in China, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report. Anecdotal evidence from Monterrey, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, and other northern Mexico cities underscores U.S. companies’ keen interest in locating there.

Ambassador Wayne notes that over the last year, Mexico and Canada’s share of total U.S. foreign trade rose by about 1%. U.S. government statistics last fall showed that “trade with our North American neighbors rose to $3 million a minute,” he says. “And we should remember that around 12 million U.S. jobs are supported by trade with our two neighbors.”

But even with that, no one should expect any measures from AMLO at next week’s summit suggesting that he aims to encourage near-shoring of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, Mr. Rubio of Mexico Evalua says. 
That is especially true, since, like Mr. Biden, Mr. Lopez Obrador is gearing up for presidential elections in 2024. The Mexican president is constitutionally barred from re-election, but AMLO is already maneuvering to be presidential kingmaker.

Still, Ambassador Wayne says that “on the positive side” the two countries have revived “a whole series of processes and mechanisms for maintaining dialogue and cooperation” that fell off during the Trump years.

“We’ve learned sometimes the hard way that both countries are better served when we are cooperating on so many issues of mutual interest,” he says. “So the fact people are back talking to each other again is a plus.”
This story was updated to correct Mr. Lopez Obrador's potential engagement with the 2024 presidential elections. 

It’s just past noon, and on the sweltering rooftop of the Bethany Church in Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka, Pastor Moses Akash de Silva and a team of volunteers are grating piles of carrots while K.D. Iranie hovers over a large pan, stirring a spicy fish curry atop a makeshift firewood cooker.

Ms. Iranie, who’s in her 60s, has served as the main cook for the church’s community kitchen since Pastor Moses started the project in June. “I come all five days a week,” she says. “Seeing the people getting a delicious meal makes me so happy. ... I am doing what God wishes me to do.”

At 12:30 p.m. sharp, after trays of fresh food are carried down four flights of steps, Pastor Moses signals a volunteer to open the church’s grilled gates. At least a hundred men, women, and children eagerly file in, following the aromas of turmeric-infused fluffy yellow rice, fish and pumpkin curries, carrot sambol, and papadums. More will arrive with time. For many, this is their first proper meal in days.

Sri Lanka’s worst-ever economic crisis has left nearly 30% of its 22 million people food insecure, according to the World Food Program, with food inflation soaring to 73% in November. The Voice Community Kitchen helps out by providing some 6,000 free lunches every week across roughly two dozen locations throughout Sri Lanka, while also bringing together different ethnoreligious communities that have historically struggled to find common ground. Pastor Moses says the initiative was born of pragmatism, compassion toward all Sri Lankans, and a desire to model the same generosity he experienced as a young person.

“I have gone for days without food, so I understand how these people feel,” he says. “It does not matter to us what religion they are from, or if they have family, or what they do. If they are hungry, they are welcome to eat at our community kitchen.”

Munza Mushtaq

Families line up for a fresh meal at the Voice Community Kitchen in the Colombo suburb of Rajagiriya, Nov. 4, 2022. There is one rule at the Voice Foundation’s community kitchens: Guests can eat as much as they want, but they can’t take food outside the premises.

Humble beginnings

Raised in an orphanage in the hill capital of Kandy, Pastor Moses moved to Colombo at age 17 seeking better opportunities. He lived at a bus stop for three days before finding work as a cleaner at a polyethylene factory. It’s there he met the senior pastor of Bethany Church, Dishan de Silva, who took him in.

Pastor Moses explains with a bright smile how he lived with the senior pastor for seven years, eventually adopting his mentor’s surname. He still goes by Pastor Moses to honor the name given to him at the orphanage.

Senior Pastor de Silva founded the Voice for Voiceless Foundation in 2015 and later handed over the reins to Pastor Moses, who has since spearheaded multiple charitable initiatives as the foundation’s national director. The community kitchen idea came to him earlier this year when Voice Foundation volunteers were distributing dry rations to families on the outskirts of Colombo.

“In one house we met a mother with a 2-year-old child who had been surviving on ripened breadfruit and water spinach for three days due to the shortage of cooking gas in the market,” he says. “That was when we thought, there was no point giving dry rations if people were unable to cook.”

So they started cooking up meals themselves. Many of the current community kitchens are based in schools, while others, such as the flagship Bethany Church program in a Colombo suburb, serve lunch every day to a mix of children and adults. At least 60% of the people who come to the kitchen do not eat breakfast or dinner due to financial hardship, according to the Voice Foundation.

No leftovers

There is only one rule at the Voice Foundation’s community kitchens: Guests can eat as much as they want, but they can’t take food outside the premises. 

At the Bethany Church, there is not a single garbage bin. According to Pastor Moses, there’s no need – there are never leftovers.

“The community kitchen attracts different people from different walks of life, including beggars, street cleaners, security guards, and anyone else who needs a meal,” Pastor Moses says.

Munza Mushtaq

Sri Lankans of different backgrounds enjoy a plate of rice and curry at Bethany Church in Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka, on Nov. 4, 2022, as poor harvests and months of economic turmoil leave millions without food.

N.K. Karunawathie works at a bank nearby. Even as the cost of living skyrockets, her salary has remained stagnant, meaning her family can “no longer afford three meals a day,” she says.

To help make ends meet, she and her husband, both Buddhists, have been visiting the Voice Community Kitchen since it started this summer. “My husband and I come here daily for lunch. ... This is a very meritorious gesture by the church,” Ms. Karunawathie says.

Most of the funding for the Voice Foundation’s activities, including the community kitchens, comes from Sri Lankans living locally and overseas. The organization has also partnered with several supermarkets to collect unsold vegetables.

Meals that quiet strife 

For a small country, Sri Lanka frequently faces religious-based conflict. Apart from a quarter-century-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which strained the relationship between the majority Buddhists and minority Hindus, the country has also seen a rise in attacks against Muslims since 2013. The Easter Sunday bombings in 2019 further exacerbated tensions. 

Mehdi Ghouse started volunteering at the kitchen months ago after learning about the project on social media.

“It doesn’t matter that I am Muslim, or this project is run by the church. What matters is the satisfaction we all get when we see people eating and leaving happy,” he says.

Not only are all religions welcome at the Voice Community Kitchen, but experts also say such initiatives could be key to improving ethnoreligious engagement and lead to better conflict mediation in the future. 

“It has been said with a degree of cynicism that the way to a hungry man’s heart is through his stomach,” says Dr. Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council, a Colombo-based educational and advocacy organization. He believes that community kitchens are one way to build trust between different ethnoreligious groups, even amid economic and political turmoil. 

“The economic crisis affects all ethnic and religious communities the same. So this is a good opportunity to forge bonds of community solidarity and overcome the challenges of the past,” he says.

For Pastor Moses, the community kitchen’s mission is simple: Feed the hungry. But he does hope the work will have a ripple effect by inspiring generosity among all who engage with the project.

“I am who I am because of the upbringing I had in the orphanage and the help I got throughout the years since I came to Colombo,” he says. “I hope others who volunteer here and those who I have taken under my wings will follow my footsteps by serving the people.”

AP

People walk by a billboard announcing the Arab Gulf Cup in Basra, Iraq, Jan. 3.

For decades, the governing body of world soccer, FIFA, has banned international competitions in Iraq, citing corruption and security concerns. That ban ended today with the opening match of the eight-nation Gulf Cup in Iraq, nearly 20 years after the U.S.-led ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein.

For much of the Arab and Islamic world, Iraq’s hosting of the Gulf Cup over two weeks marks at least some progress against corruption and toward honest governance.

“It is a step forward to retain Iraq’s normal position in the fields of sport, culture and society,” Asaad Al-Eidani, the governor of Basra province where the Gulf Cup is being held, told Al Arabiya television. “It is a message to the whole world that we are capable.”

Iraq has an above-average democracy for Middle East Muslim countries, yet three years after anti-corruption protests toppled a corrupt government, new leaders have done only a little to reform a governing system almost designed to siphon off public wealth for the private gain of political parties.

Across the region, nearly 90% of people say corruption is widespread in their countries, according to the 2022 Arab Opinion Index. Yet despite political setbacks since the 2011 Arab Spring, nearly three-quarters in the region want a democratic system.

About 90% of Arabs also describe themselves as religious. That may explain why the 57-member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) agreed in December at a meeting in Saudi Arabia to assist one another in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting corruption crimes. Recent protests against corruption in Islamic countries have put pressure on leaders to attempt reforms, especially to attract graft-wary foreign investors.

The OIC adopted what is called the Makkah Al-Mukarramah (“Holy City of Mecca”) Convention. It commits members to set up a general secretariat and smooth cooperation among law enforcement officials. The OIC is the second-largest international organization after the United Nations and considers itself to be “the collective voice of the Muslim world.”

To deal with corruption, many Islamic scholars have begun to emphasize the need for Muslims to better practice moral virtues with “transcendent” accountability. “This could happen through the spiritual factor in every realm of human activity to harmonize with the goals and values of Islam,” wrote three Malaysian academics in a 2020 Journal of Financial Crime paper. They cited scripture that states Allah “created you ... of like nature, His mate.”

For the soccer teams playing this month in the Gulf Cup, their mere presence in Iraq reflects a regional desire for honesty and transparency in leaders. “The Gulf Cup has put a smile on many Iraqi faces, and after years of suffering they surely deserve it,” wrote journalist Ahmed Twaij in Arab News. “Hosting the tournament is not just about the football, it is about the progress and stability of Iraq that it symbolizes.”