Senkaku wrote:
WaPo paywall-- I'm assuming his new political appointees assisted, or was this the Joint Chiefs pre-emptively getting worried the DC Guard could defect?
"The Pentagon placed significant restrictions on the D.C. Guard ahead of pro-Trump protests this week, putting the District’s military force in a back-seat role ahead of events that resulted in an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In memos issued on Jan. 4 and 5, the Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary for self-defense, sharing equipment with local law enforcement or using Guard surveillance and air assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off, according to officials familiar with the orders.
The D.C. Guard was also told it would be allowed to deploy a Quick Reaction Force only as a measure of last resort, the officials said.
The need for higher-level approval appeared to have slowed the military response when the Capitol Police, the law enforcement force that reports to Congress and protects the House and the Senate, requested backup from 200 troops during a call with top Pentagon officials early Wednesday afternoon, according to officials familiar with the call.
The Capitol Police hadn’t asked for Guard backup in anticipation of the protests, which President Trump supported to stop congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Guard units arrived roughly 2.5 hours after the chief of the Capitol Police made the emergency request, even though a Quick Reaction Force had been put on standby outside the city limits, one of the officials said, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
[As Trump backers descend on capital, military hopes to avoid political fray]
The Defense Department was able to restrict the D.C. Guard because the military force answers to the president rather than the mayor, as the District is not a state. The president’s power over the D.C. Guard is typically delegated to the defense secretary, then the Army secretary, who makes command decisions.
Officials said the restrictions on the D.C. Guard were put in place in part because city and Pentagon leadership didn’t want a large military presence after Trump ordered a mass military response to racial justice protests in the nation’s capital this summer, prompting a public outcry when military helicopters flew low over protesters, surveillance assets hovered above the city and residents were left with a sense that the District was being occupied or was under siege.
A U.S. defense official said the military always issues memos outlining the parameters of any mission. The restrictions added ahead of Wednesday’s events made sense, the official said, given that D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser requested the deployment of only a small contingent of some 340 guardsmen, primarily to control traffic and monitor metro stations.
AdChoices
“All commanders have left and right limits,” the official said. “There is no such thing as carte blanche.”
The official said that when the mission changed on Wednesday afternoon, the Pentagon provided more forces than were requested, bringing in Guard units from outside states and loosening the restrictions.
But the initial restrictions and the unique command structure of the D.C. Guard may have made it more difficult for authorities to quickly send the guardsmen to aid Capitol Police.
The D.C. Guard is housed in the Armory about 10 minutes’ drive from the Capitol.
The delay in response prompted panicked lawmakers to call high-up officials at the Pentagon and in nearby states asking for military force to be sent to Capitol Hill. The governors of Maryland and Virginia expressed concern Wednesday about what they described as a delay in reaction by the Defense Department.
On Thursday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he received a call from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who said he was in a secure location with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.
“I was actually on the phone with Leader Hoyer who was pleading with us to send the guard,” Hogan said. “He was yelling across the room to Schumer and they were back and forth saying we do have the authorization and I’m saying, ‘I’m telling you we do not have the authorization.’ ”
Hogan said Maj. Gen. Timothy Gowen, the Adjutant General of the Maryland National Guard, was repeatedly rebuffed by the Pentagon.
“The General … kept running it up the flagpole, and we don’t have authorization,” he said.
Ninety minutes later, Hogan said, he received a call “out of the blue, not from the Secretary of Defense, not through what would be normal channels,” but from Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who asked if the Maryland guardsmen could “come as soon as possible.”
“It was like, yea, we’re waiting, we’re ready,” said Hogan, who had already sent 200 State Police troopers at Bowser’s request.
There were also suggestions that city authorities were frustrated with a holdup at the Pentagon. Clark Mercer, chief of staff to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D), said he received a call from his counterpart in Bowser’s office, who suggested the Defense Department wasn’t moving fast enough and asked for Virginia to send in its own state Guard — an extraordinary request that laid bare the difficulty Bowser faced in having to rely on federal officials at the Pentagon answerable to the president to command the District’s military force.
Virginia sent in its Guard and state troopers after Northam received a panicked call from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asking for help.
Once the Pentagon signed off, the Guard mounted a vast response.
“Going through that mission analysis process, we were able to do an analysis and provide more than what they asked for,” the defense official said. “No one asked us to activate the entire guard. Those are decisions we made on our own by taking a pause and conducting another analysis.”
It is unclear what role if any Trump played in the decisions regarding the D.C. Guard, which is overseen by his Pentagon subordinates.
Thousands of additional National Guard forces were moving into the area on Thursday, as their commander said authorities had not imagined “in their wildest dreams” that supporters of President Trump could storm the seat of American democracy.
McCarthy, who functions as de facto commander of the Washington D.C. National Guard, said 6,200 troops would be positioned in and around the city by the weekend, including Guard forces from Pennsylvania, New York and other Mid-Atlantic states.
“ With respect to the posture leading in the way, we receive our intelligence from law enforcement agencies,” he said at a news briefing alongside Bowser.
McCarthy said officials approached their preparations for Wednesday assuming it would be similar to other recent protests and didn’t in their “wildest imagination” envision rioters breaching Capitol grounds.
Ahead of Wednesday’s events, far-right forums on digital platforms including Telegram, Parler and thedonald.win made reference to violence and urged people to come armed to the planned protest seeking to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election, which Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
The chaotic and violent outcome, which claimed four lives including a rioter who was shot by U.S. Capitol Police, came shortly after Trump egged on supporters in an address outside the White House, falsely insisting the election was fraudulent and urging the crowd to fight to keep him in office.
The turmoil follows a divisive year leading up to the election, the coronavirus pandemic, and civil unrest after the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police in May.
The protests triggered by Floyd’s death and race-related violence appeared to have prompted city and Pentagon official to opt for a muted response that kept military personnel far from protesters and let local and Capitol police take the lead. The Pentagon came under severe criticism in June, after National Guard forces were on hand when unarmed protesters were forcibly cleared from an area near the White House and front-line troops were positioned outside of Washington.
Local officials complained about a delay in granting their request for additional National Guard help after rioters swarmed the Capitol. While McCarthy said Wednesday that some confusion about the request led to a delay of less than an hour, Bowser on Thursday asked for the D.C. Guard to be put under her control rather than that of the federal government.
McCarthy said all available D.C. Guard troops had been mobilized and that at least 850 would be at the Capitol by midday, where they would help erect a 7-foot “non-scalable” fence around the building’s exterior.
“These personnel and these security measures will be in place for no less than the next 30 days,” he said.
Thursday afternoon, 24 hours after the Capitol breach, acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller issued a statement calling the violence “reprehensible and contrary to the tenets of the United States Constitution.”
“Our Republic may have been disrupted yesterday, but the resolve of our legislators to conduct the people’s business did not waver. Due to their efforts, supported by local and federal law enforcement and the National Guard, the attempts of those who tried to stop our government from functioning failed,” Miller said.
“I strongly condemn these acts of violence against our democracy. I, and the people I lead in the Department of Defense, continue to perform our duties in accordance with our oath of office, and will execute the time-honored peaceful transition of power to President-elect Biden on January 20.”
