Capitol Demonstration Question

@dancingtongue Considering it would have been as simple as sending a tweet to call off the mob, I can see that argument too.

@dancingtongue Ya think the 20,000 National Guard authorized by President Trump and refused by the demonocrats might have prevented any tom-foolishness?

@sunsporter1649 Source?

@sunsporter1649 When did he authorize that? After Meadows called General Milley on January 7 and asked him to "change the narrative" as Milley testified under oath? Don't forget that (1) neither Pelosi nor McConnell had the authority to request or refuse National Guard involvement and (2) even if they had, McConnell isn't a Democrat so you can't blame it on one political party.

@BohemianBoo Source this.

@BohemianBoo "The former chief of U.S. Capitol Police says security officials at the House and Senate rebuffed his early requests to call in the National Guard ahead of a demonstration in support of President Trump that turned into a deadly attack on Congress.

Former chief Steven Sund -- who resigned his post last week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for him to step down -- made the assertions in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday.

Sund contradicts claims made by officials after Wednesday's assault on Capitol Hill. Sund's superiors said previously that the National Guard and other additional security support could have been provided, but no one at the Capitol requested it.

Sund told the Post that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving was concerned with the "optics" of declaring an emergency ahead of the protests and rejected a National Guard presence. He says Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended that he informally request the Guard to be ready in case it was needed to maintain security.

Like Sund, Irving and Stenger have also since resigned their posts.

Sund says he requested assistance six times ahead of and during the attack on the Capitol. Each of those requests was denied or delayed, he says.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser also wanted a light police presence at the Capitol. She reportedly wanted to avoid a similar scenario as last summer, when federal forces responded to demonstrators opposed to police abuses who assembled near the White House.

During Wednesday's violence, Bowser requested, and received, a limited force of 340 from the D.C. National Guard. Those troops were unarmed and their job was to help with traffic flow — not law enforcement, which was meant to be handled by D.C. police.

When the mob reached the Capitol complex at about 12:40 p.m. ET on Wednesday, it took about 15 minutes for the west side perimeter of the building to be breached, he says. The Capitol Police contingent, which numbered around 1,400 that day, was quickly overrun by the estimated 8,000 rioters.

"If we would have had the National Guard we could have held them at bay longer, until more officers from our partner agencies could arrive," he says.

Sund says during a conference call with several law enforcement officials at about 2:26 p.m., he asked the Pentagon to provide backup.

Senior Army official Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army Staff, said on the call he couldn't recommend that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy authorize deployment, Sund and others on the call told the Post. Piatt reportedly said, "I don't like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background," the Post reported.

It would be more than three hours before any National Guard troops arrived, well after the damage at the Capitol had been done.

In the interview, Sund also issued a warning to federal officials, saying "if they don't get their act together with physical security, it's going to happen again."

@sunsporter1649 You will notice in there that there is no mention of Trump authorizing the troops, nor either Pelosi or McConnell being involved in the discussion, and if you listened to the testimony on this in the hearings you would know there is disagreement between Sund and the National Guard authorities over when an actual request was put in. All 3 of those involved in the decision not to ask for National Guard support in advance -- Sund, Irving, and Stenger -- were asked for their resignations by McConnell and Pelosi. Congress and Biden have streamlined the authority for asking for National Guard support, taking out of the hands of the two Sergeant-at-Arms and the Capitol Architect where it had resided; never in the hands of either Pelosi or McConnell.

@dancingtongue The Chief of U.S. Capitol Police is the one that authorizes the call-up of the National Guard! Well I'll be darned

@sunsporter1649 No. At that time it was a panel of the two Sergeant-at-Arms and the Architect of the Capitol for some arcane reason who were authorized to make the request. Now the Metro D.C. Police Chief is authorized to request support. Those are requests. Of course the Commander-in-Chief, POTUS, and his delegate, Secretary of the Army, have final authority on deploying, and in the case of POTUS need not wait for a request.

@dancingtongue So obviously the Guard was authorized for deployment by President Trump, so who prevented it?

@sunsporter1649 It was ultimately authorized by the Secretary of the Army after the mob had broken into the Capitol Building itself. From the sworn testimony by those involved there never was any prior request, no prior authorization, and no involvement by Trump. Only a lot of back and forth conversations between lower level security heads debating the pros and cons of pushing to request a bigger National Guard deployment in advance, and erring on the wrong side because they gave insufficient weight to the intelligence reports they were receiving about militant groups organizing and arming.

@dancingtongue

@sunsporter1649 That's nice, but there's no link.

@BohemianBoo It's his way of saying he no longer has anything of substance to contribute to a civil discussion of the facts.

@dancingtongue When he starts posting pics, you know he gave up.