Army tried to resist DC request for National Guard ahead of Capitol riot, report says

The Army reportedly tried to resist Washington DC's request for National Guard troops to enhance security ahead of the riot on 6 January, showcasing the reluctance of Pentagon top brass to allow the military to be involved in protecting the Capitol, a memo reveals.

In an internal draft memo acquired by The Washington Post, the Army argued the military shouldn't help police with managing traffic and crowds – as was requested by DC officials – unless more than 100,000 people were expected to descend on the city.

The draft memo further claimed that law enforcement was “far better suited” for the task at hand, and that the request should be rejected because no federal agency had been put in charge of preparations and operations on the day – meaning that the agency resources had yet to be used to their full extent.

The Army later gave in to the demands after coming under pressure from the acting Secretary of Defence Christopher Miller and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, after it became clear that DC officials were not going to go to the Department of Justice for help as the Army had hoped, The Washington Post reports.

Army spokesperson Colonel Cathy Wilkinson toldThe Post that they provided 340 National Guardsmen to help with closing streets and managing the crowd, as was requested.

She said: “Clearly, the mayor’s request was approved and supported. The draft memo was not signed or approved. It is customary for the Army staff to provide options for Army senior leaders to inform their decision-making process.”

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Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy accepted the request on the condition that an agency was put in charge to lead, and that all other federal agencies “exhausted their assets to support these events”. This was a recommendation he gave in his last memo to Mr Miller, who approved the request.

The National Guard is trained to help law enforcement manage large protests and has done so for decades in the nation’s capital.

The commander of the DC National Guard Major General William Walker said during testimony before congress that “Army senior leaders did not think that it looked good ... They further stated that it could incite the crowd," The Hill reported.

Mr Miller told Vanity Fair in January that the criticism that the Pentagon was slow to respond was "complete horses***".

He added: “I know when something doesn’t smell right, and I know when we’re covering our asses. Been there. I know for an absolute fact that historians are going to look … at the actions that we did on that day and go, ‘Those people had their game together.’”

Pentagon officials have said that Capitol Police and federal agencies didn't ask for help before the event, meaning that the Department of Defense was unprepared to respond quickly when the riot got underway. But the draft memo obtained by The Post also suggests that top Army leaders may have wanted to stay away from the very beginning.

The National Guards in the states answer to their respective governors, while the DC guard is under the leadership of the President who delegates their management to the Defense and Army secretaries. The DC Mayor can only make requests for their deployment.

A former Pentagon official told The Washington Post: “We were asked to support the Capitol from a cold start after it already had been overrun and are being criticised for how we fast we responded. We are not like law enforcement units whose job it is to police the streets.”

A former senior Pentagon official told the paper that the Army was “scarred by the experiences of June”, when law enforcement was heavily criticised for how they dealt with racial justice protests following the death of George Floyd. The official added that senior officials were very aware that using the military “could be misconstrued by so many people as a power grab and play into the narrative that the military was on the cusp of overthrowing duly elected officials to redo an election".

When asked to explain the stance of the Army, the former official told The Post: “It is customary practice that law enforcement assets have to be utilised and near exhaustion before DoD will support operations. It is not an official policy but is designed to reinforce that military should be used as a last resort.”

But the DC guard and the National Guards in the states have regularly been called in to help with protests and to free up police officers for other tasks during large events.

“We didn’t want to find ourselves in a situation where [the DC police] needed help and we denied it,” the former official added.

Army leaders approved the narrow request for the DC Guard despite that all federal agency resources hadn't been used because they didn't want to put the DC government in a tough spot, the former Pentagon official told The Washington Post.