Yesterday, the Senate held the second part of its hearing to investigate Capitol security failures on January 6. So what role did the National Guard and federal agencies play with respect to the intelligence gathering and security response for January 6?
30,000 Trump supporters and intel indicating infiltration of extremist groups. Then why
was Capitol so ill-prepared for the January 6th riots? This is SOH News and I'm Lina Skorbak.
Yesterday, the Senate held the second part of its hearing to investigate Capitol security
failures on January 6th. Most notably, they were looking at the National Guard response
and why it took so long. Major General Walker is the commander of the D.C. National Guard. He said
that he would have immediately sent the troops to the Capitol after getting a call from the
Capitol Police chief if it wasn't for the fact that the Pentagon placed unusual restrictions
on the Guard, namely restricting them from carrying protection equipment and weapons
without the personal authorization of the Secretary of Defense. It also seems that the
Mayor of D.C. thought the district was prepared for the event. That's according to the testimony
by Robert Salaces, a senior official at the D.O.D. On January 5th, the acting Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of the Army received a letter from the Mayor of D.C. stating NPD is prepared
and coordinated with its federal partners, namely the Park Police, the Capitol Police,
and the Secret Service. Based on these communications with federal and local
civilian authorities, D.O.D. determined that no additional military support was required.
Also, a few days prior to the protest, Salaces said his staff contacted the FBI as well as four
other law enforcement agencies to determine if they plan to request assistance from the D.O.D.
According to his testimony, none of them indicated the need for D.C. National Guard support.
But then there's this testimony submitted to the Senate in a previous hearing by former Capitol
Police Chief Stephen Sund. He said that a pre-January 6th intelligence assessment
indicated that members of the Proud Boys, white supremacist groups, Antifa, and other
extremist groups were expected to participate in the event and that they may be inclined to become
violent. He also said that the breach was coordinated, noting that some rioters had
climbing gear. By contrast, the FBI claims it had no credible threat reports of a pre-planned attack.
There was another nuance involved that caused the National Guard to be deployed an hour later
after the rioters breached the Capitol, and that was bad optics for the military.
Salaces said that military officials were particularly mindful about responding forcefully
to civil disturbances in light of events that happened last summer. The Pentagon was criticized
for deploying the National Guard and flying helicopters over citizens when they were
protesting the death of George Floyd. So with the D.O.D. being cautious when it came to January 6th,
Major General Walker said he had to wait three hours for the authorization process to complete
before the Guard's quick reaction force could be deployed. Despite that, General Mark Miley,
who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that there were
mischaracterizations of response times for the military, and in fact, Pentagon's response could
be considered super fast. He said that from a technical military standpoint, from the receipt
of the phone call to alerting National Guard forces from a cold start, to them being on the
scene, the response was very fast. If you want to read the full witness statement submitted to the
Senate, please check out the links in the description below. Let us know what you think,
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