Thoughts on the Anniversary of January 6, 2021
We all heard and saw firsthand President Trump direct his supporters to the Capitol to reverse his electoral defeat. We saw firsthand the fighting as they sought to break into the Capitol and into the Chambers of the House and Senate. We saw the police beaten and overwhelmed, and we saw the insurrectionists chase throughout the Capitol seeking to harm and kill Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Mike Pence, and many elected officials who were doing the nation’s most important business – electing our next President, a largely ceremonial but vital process as the nation’s voters had already chosen Joe Biden.
What ran through my mind during the insurrection and since was “where’s the National Guard”, where are the federal troops? Where are the reinforcements for the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police? I have been present at a number of huge protests in DC back in the 60’s and 70’s, and the National Guard reinforcements were always there and heavily armed in case matters got out of hand, as far as the local police and federal authorities were concerned. They were stationed in very large numbers on buses close to the rally and protest sites.
In Appendix 2, the January 6 Committee report seeks to explain what happened with the National Guards response and why. During the spring and summer protests about the killing of George Floyd, the National Guard had been used extensively to quell the protests across the nation. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-military/after-summer-of-protests-u-s-national-guard-puts-troops-on-standby-for-coming-months-officials-idUSKBN26R1M5 President Trump wanted to use the National Guard to shoot the protesters; this was opposed by Army and the Attorney General.
There had been widespread criticism of the use of the National Guard to put down and quell legitimate civil protests about the startling police misconduct and killings in the cases of George Floyd, Brianna Taylor and too many others. President Trump wanted to bring in Army troops to shoot the DC protesters; this was strongly opposed by Secretary of Defense Esper who was fired as soon as the election was over and replaced by Secretary Miller. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/09/mark-esper-fired-defence-pentagon-donald-trump
Both the Mayor of DC and the top Army officials did not want to see a repeat of the excessive use of National Guard force on the January 6 certification of the Presidential election. The top Capitol Police officials were aware of the projected size of the Trump protest, but did not believe it would turn violent or foresee it would turn into an insurrection; they asked only for limited National Guard back up capacity. DC Mayor Bowser asked for the Guard to be used primarily for traffic control and crowd management at the metro subway stations to free up local police officers. She had no jurisdiction at all over the Trump organized events of January 6 happening at the Mall and later (although as yet unannounced) at the US Capitol, as this was all happening on federal lands.
Army Secretary McCarthy was very resistant to fulfilling even Mayor Bowser’s limited request, citing the optics of boots on the ground at the US Capitol during the certification of the election results. We would look like a banana republic.
McCarthy and Secretary of Defense Miller were acutely aware of the potential that President Trump would, if the opportunity presented itself, call out the federal troops to keep him in office as many of Trump’s most extreme advisors and allies were advocating martial law, seizing ballot boxes, re-running the elections under military control or having state legislatures over-rule the will of their state’s voters. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/defense-secretaries-letter-warning-trump-signed-days/story?id=75036788 As the President is the nation’s commander in chief, how would the military, how would the nation’s troops respond to Trump’s orders to keep him in office?
What armed forces were available on January 6? The Army had a quick reaction force of 40 soldiers based at Andrews Airforce Base for use in circumstances of last resort, plus 90 members of the traffic control units and a second shift of 118 plus another 72 members – making 348 military personnel. They were at the ready, due to Colonel Hunter who had read the tea leaves and got them ready, while not alerting his immediate superiors of his unit’s training and preparedness in case of emergency.
While the local National Guard was primed and ready to go and asking for the green light, the higher ups at the Pentagon, specifically the Generals and the Army Secretary would not give the go ahead to send the troops to the Capitol to put down the insurrection. Major General Walker, head of the DC National Guard asked his superiors for permission to go in support of the besieged Capitol Police; he waited over three hours on a phone conference call with the Pentagon before he finally got clearance to deploy his troops to the Capitol. The troops arrived at 5:30, but could have been there much earlier, but for the delays in getting Pentagon approval. The January 6 Committee’s Report conclusions were that the delays in bringing in the DC Guard were not due to anything other than screw ups, miscommunications, and an abundance of Pentagon caution in the face of overwhelming evidence that the troops were needed immediately to put down the Capitol invasion. The conspicuous lack of any leadership from President Trump, watching the Capitol invasion unfold on TV, was noteworthy, but was not the cause of the Army’s delay; it was a dereliction of Presidential duty but not active malfeasance on his part that caused the delayed National Guard response.