House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly declared that the Pentagon under the Trump administration delayed sending National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 breach, but an inspector general found otherwise.
The Defense Department IG, in a report released Wednesday, concluded the Pentagon responded appropriately and in a timely fashion to urgent requests for National Guard assistance, Just the News reported.
“We also determined that DoD officials did not delay or obstruct the DoD’s response,” the report says.
The IG found that former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy acted reasonably in deploying an additional round of soldiers more than three hours after numerous calls for assistance were fielded from D.C. and federal officials.
Miller told the “John Solomon Reports” podcast that it “broke my heart” to see the military, which “responded really with alacrity and professionalism,” get “thrown under the bus by the politicians.”
“I was so naive. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “When it comes to national security, I thought we’re on the same team. I was really horrified that it had become so partisan.”
Just the News reported the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard at the time, Maj. Gen. William Walker, testified to the Senate in March that the Pentagon unnecessarily delayed its response. Walker alleged the overpowered Capitol Police asked for assistance but the Pentagon kept help from arriving for hours while it could have arrived in minutes.
The IG interviewed Walker, but the report found no evidence to support the general’s claim.
The Associated Press reported Jan. 7 that three days before the breach of the Capitol, the Pentagon asked Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower. Further, amid the riot, Justice Department leaders offered FBI agents.
But police turned them down both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter who spoke to the AP.
In February, one-time White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said President Trump had offered ahead of the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress “as many as 10,000 National Guard troops.”
Meadows told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” that in January and “”throughout the summer … the president was very vocal in making sure that we had plenty of National Guard, plenty of additional support because he supports our rule of law and supports our law enforcement and offered additional help.”
Meadows said that in January, “as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the Secretary of Defense.”
“That was a direct order from President Trump, and yet here is what we see, all kinds of blame going around but yet not a whole lot of accountability. That accountability needs to rest with where it ultimately should be and that’s on Capitol Hill.”
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