{"id":39492,"date":"2021-01-07T19:38:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T19:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/01\/07\/this-is-why-the-national-guard-didnt-respond-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T07:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:24:21","slug":"this-is-why-the-national-guard-didnt-respond-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/01\/07\/this-is-why-the-national-guard-didnt-respond-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol\/","title":{"rendered":"This is why the National Guard didn\u2019t respond to the attack on the Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hundreds of National Guard troops<\/a> were posted in the streets of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon, but there was little they could do to respond as pro-Trump rioters overran the Capitol<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigations are imminent, to determine whether the Capitol Police were undermanned and unprepared for the threat posed by two days of rallies against the results of the 2020 election, but the answer as to why troops posted blocks away were unable to respond to the siege is as simple \u2015 or as complicated \u2015 as a morass of bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, the National Guard<\/a> only shows up to D.C. when they\u2019ve been invited, and the Capitol Police did not extend that invitation until after the breach, according to a source with knowledge of the process, who was not authorized to speak about it on the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rioters enter the Capitol building through a smashed window on Jan. 6, 2021. (Kyle Rempfer\/Staff)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The several hundred troops posted around downtown D.C. on Wednesday were there at the request of Mayor Muriel Bowser, to support local police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had worked out that the support we were providing the [Metropolitan] Police Department would be on traffic control points,\u201d the source said, including downtown subway stations and select blocks, where teams of two Guardsmen and several vehicles were keeping the streets clear of cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowser put in a request for support Dec. 31, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Defense Department was in contact with Capital Police ahead of Tuesday and Wednesday\u2019s protests, Kenneth Rapuano, the assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, told reporters during a press call on Thursday. They asserted that they would not be requesting National Guard support, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DCNG announced Monday it had mobilized 340 troops to support MPD, but that organization\u2019s jurisdiction does not cover any federal land within the District, and so its officers \u2015 and its Guard support \u2015 could not have just rushed to the Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, once they got there, Guard troops who had been acting in a traffic control capacity, not as law enforcement, would not have been able or authorized to forcibly push back rioters or help clear the building, a task that fell to the Capitol Police and the FBI tactical forces they requested to help out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when chaos unfolded Wednesday afternoon and reports surfaced that there had been a request for additional Guard troops and the Defense Department had denied it, here\u2019s what really happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of D.C.\u2019s finicky federal status, any entity \u2015 whether its the mayor, or the Interior Department, which controls federal parks within the District \u2015 has to put in a request for National Guard troops through the Army secretary, who gets it endorsed by the defense secretary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Capitol\u2019s request for Guard back-up went beyond what Bowser had already gotten approved, so it needed a new sign-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe quickly worked to move our resources forward in support of Metro PD and the Capitol Police,\u201d McCarthy said Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process took about an hour, the source familiar told Military Times, from the time McCarthy received it around 2 p.m. on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to make sure, based off what we saw developing, that that was an acceptable use, all the way up to the SECDEF, which didn\u2019t take long,\u201d the source said, including about half an hour spent relaying the request to acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller.<\/p>\n\n\n\t