The story America was told about January 6 is cracking. Behind the televised outrage and rehearsed talking points, a different account has quietly emerged from the man who was actually in command of Capitol security. Former Chief Steven Sund says he saw the danger coming, begged for backup, and was denied. His warnings, his paper trail, his repeated pleas for National Guard support—ignored until it was far too late. If he’s right, the real failure wasn’t chaos in the streets, but power in the shadows, where approvals stalled, authority blurred, and responsibility vanished just when the Capitol needed it most. His version doesn’t fit the tidy narrative. It threatens it. And that’s why the fight over who really blocked the Guard is only just begi… Continues…
Sund’s account forces a painful reexamination of how security decisions were made before and during January 6. He describes a system where he could see the threat forming, formally request National Guard support, and still be powerless without the Capitol Police Board’s approval. That board, tied into congressional leadership, became the bottleneck at the worst possible moment, as officers on the ground faced escalating violence with too little support.
After the chaos, authorizations flowed quickly, and troops flooded the Capitol complex. The contrast is what lingers: why decisive action only came after the damage was done. Sund isn’t offering a simple villain or a convenient scapegoat. Instead, he points to a structure that diffuses accountability so thoroughly that no one clearly “owns” the failure. His story doesn’t erase other mistakes or motives, but it demands that Washington confront the quiet machinery of authority that failed when seconds mattered.