Trump's Troops

[TomT]

As Trump had fired his Secretary of Defense in early December, on December 9th, six days after the election. the Secretary of the Army Christopher Miller became the acting Secretary of Defense.

When giving sworn testimony to the January 6th committee, Miller testified that at no time did Trump instruct him or even talk to him about having National Guard available for the January 6th event. Miller was the top in the chain of command for the National Guard.

Aware of the testimony of his Secretary of Defense, Trump created and posted a video on his Truth Social platform in which he said, “Days before the protest I urged the deployment of 10,000 to 20,000 National Guard troops to keep the event safe for all involved.

Keep in mind Trump did not say who he “urged the deployment” of troops to. In sworn testimony tw of Trump’s closest advisors testified that Trump had “floated the idea” of having 10,000 National Guard troops to lead the protesters from the rally to the Capitol Building with him at the head of the parade. His staff quickly and strongly advised against this plan and Trump “seemed to agree that is was not a good idea.”

So, not only did Trump not urge the preparation of the National Guard, but at his direction, Christopher Miller – acting Secretary of Defense, issued a memo on January 4, 2021 addressed to the Secretary of the Army – who is in charge of the National Guard. Here are the important directives Miller commanded of the National Guard regarding what the Washington DC National Guard was not to do.

“Without subsequent personal authorization, the DCNG (Washington DC National Guard) is not authorized the following:

1. To issue weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.
2. To interact personally with protestors except when necessary for self defense or the defense of others, consistent with the DCNG rules for the use of force.
3. To deploy any riot control agents
4. To share equipment with law enforcement agencies
5. To deploy intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets or conduct ISR or Incident, Awareness and Assessment activities.
6. To employ helicopters or other air assets
7. To conduct searches, seizers or arrests or other direct law enforcement activities
8. To seek support from Non-DCNG National Guard Units

So, once Trump gave up on the idea of having the National Guard lead the protest to the Capitol, he made damned sure that his new Secretary of Defense stripped all effective use of the National Guard to control the riot.

Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller not only prevented any effective us of the Washington DC National Guard, but he personally helped keep the National Guard from being used at all to quell the riot that Trump wanted. He simply refused to take any calls from anyone who might want to use the National Guard to protect the Capitol and the Senators and Congressman who were in hiding and in fear of their lives. Miller cut all communication with those trying to reach him on January 6th. Sworn testimony from the Republican Governor of Maryland shows that no matter how many times he and his staff tried to get in contact with Secretary Miller, he would not take any of his calls during the riot. Senators and Congressman hiding from the mob, also called Secretary Miller on numerous occasions trying to get the National Guard to help put down the riot. Secretary Miller took NONE of these Senators and Congressman’s frantic calls for help. On January 6th Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller as part of Team Trump chose to be AWOL.

Trump then, being Trump, blamed Nancy Pelosi for failing to call out the National Guard.

You can read all this for yourself. Go to the January 6, House Investigation Committee report in Section 6.14, page 533-534 to validate the accuracy of the information I used for my analysis.

[Rebound]

This was deliberate.  Trump belongs in prison. 

[robosmith]

50 minutes ago, Rebound said:

This was deliberate.  Trump belongs in prison. 

Cue the right wing excuse making machine for Trump....

[Michael Hardner]

Wow.  The Secretary needs to explain his actions.

[suds]

On 12/28/2022 at 1:25 PM, TomT said:

So, not only did Trump not urge the preparation of the National Guard, but at his direction, Christopher Miller – acting Secretary of Defense, issued a memo on January 4, 2021 addressed to the Secretary of the Army – who is in charge of the National Guard. Here are the important directives Miller commanded of the National Guard regarding what the Washington DC National Guard was not to do.

Where does it say that Trump 'directed' Christopher Miller to issue that memo??? And this thing about Miller being AWOL on Jan 6th isn't quite accurate either, at least according to the Jan 6th committee report. So where did you get that information from???

[suds]

Jan 6th committee report.    'DC NATIONAL GUARD PREPARATION FOR AND RESPONSE TO JANUARY 6TH'.  Appendix 2  pages 724 to 750

A long read but a bit of an eye opener. Everything was optics...optics...optics... concerning the use of the DC National Guard. Even after the Capitol was breached, optics was still a topic of concern with some. Too many different branches and too many fingers in the pie. Something was bound to go wrong.