WASHINGTON (AP) – From a safe room in the Capitol on January 6, when rioters bumped into police and vandalized the building, Vice President Mike Pence is trying to assert control. In an urgent call to the acting secretary of defense, he made a striking demand.
“Clean up the Capitol,” Pence said.
Elsewhere in the building, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a similarly serious appeal to military leaders, asking the military to deploy the national guard.
“We need help,” Schumer, DN.Y., said desperately, more than an hour after the Senate chamber was violated.
At the Pentagon, officials discussed media reports that the chaos was not confined to Washington and that other capitals were facing similar violence in the sense of a national uprising.
“We must bring order,” said Genl. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a call with Pentagon leaders.
But the order would not be restored for hours.
These new details about the deadly riot are contained in a document previously drafted by the Pentagon for internal use, obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by current and former government officials.
The timeline adds another layer of understanding about the state of fear and panic as the uprising unfolded, revealing that the then president, Donald Trump, was lacking and how the gap contributed to a delayed response from the military and law enforcement. It shows that the intelligence errors, tactical errors and bureaucratic delays were obscured by the government’s failure to comprehend the extent and intensity of a violent uprising by its own citizens.
Not engaged to Trump, Pentagon officials, a handful of White House senior assistants, congressional leaders and vice presidents fall into a safe bunker to manage the chaos.
While the timeline helps crystallize the ferocious character of the crisis, the document, along with hours of sworn evidence, provides only an incomplete picture of how the uprising could have progressed with such rapid and deadly force, leading to the certification of Joe Biden as Congress interrupt. president and delayed the peaceful transfer of power, the hallmark of American democracy.
Legislators, protected to this day by National Guard troops, will hear from the Capitol Police Inspector General the coming week.
“Every moment we lose, I need to know why,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Chairwoman of the Senate’s rules and administration committee, which is investigating the siege, said last month.
Some of the gaps fill in the timeline.
At 6:08 a.m. on January 6, when the rioters wandered around the Capitol and after threatening to call Pelosi, D-California, shouting that Pence should be hanged, the vice president was in a safe place and called Christopher. . Miller, the acting secretary of defense, and demands answers.
There was a very public rift between Trump and Pence, with Trump furious that his vice president had refused to discontinue the Electoral College certification. Interfering in the process was an act that Pence considered unconstitutional. The Constitution makes it clear that the role of the Vice-President in this joint sitting of Congress is largely ceremonial.
Pence’s call to Miller lasted only a minute. Pence said the Capitol is not safe and according to the document, he is asking military leaders for a deadline for securing the building.
By this time, it had been two hours since the crowd unpreparedly overpowered the Capitol police for an uprising. Rioters broke into the building, seized the Senate and paraded into the House. On their way, they left devastation and rubble behind. Dozens of officers were injured, some seriously.
Just three days earlier, government leaders had spoken about the use of the National Guard. When the legislators were sworn in for the new session of Congress, the afternoon of January 3rd met with cabinet members to discuss January 6th. They also met with Trump.
During the White House meeting, Trump approved the activation of the DC National Guard and also instructed the acting secretary of defense to take the necessary steps if the events occur, according to the information obtained by the AP.
The next day, January 4, the defense officials spoke by telephone with the cabinet members, including the acting attorney general, and finalized the details of the deployment of the Guard.
The Guard’s role was limited to traffic intersections and checkpoints in the city, based in part on strict restrictions imposed by district officials. Miller also authorized Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy to deploy, if necessary, the DC Guard’s Emergency Response Force stationed at Joint Base Andrews.
The Trump administration and the Pentagon were wary of a heavy military presence, in part because of criticism faced by officials for the seemingly heavy-handed national guard and law enforcement efforts to counter civil unrest in the aftermath of the assassination of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
In particular, the DC Guard’s use of helicopters to soar over crowds in downtown Washington during these demonstrations drew widespread criticism. That unauthorized move led the Pentagon to better control the DC Guard.
“There were a lot of things that happened in the spring that the department was criticized for,” Robert Salesses said, who serves as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security and Global Security, said during a congressional hearing last month.
On the eve of Trump’s protest on January 6 near the White House, the first 255 troops of the National Guard arrived in the district, and Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed in a letter to the government that no other military support was needed.
By the morning of January 6, crowds at the Ellipse began to gather before Trump’s speech. According to the Pentagon’s plans, the acting secretary of defense will only be notified if the crowd swells more than 20,000.
Before long, it was clear that the crowd had far more control over events than the troops and law enforcers there to maintain order.
Trump gave his speech just before noon and he told supporters to march to the Capitol. The crowd was at least 10,000 at the rally. By 13:15 the march was well there.
When protesters reached the site of the Capitol, some immediately became violent, burst through weak police gates in front of the building and beat officers who were standing in their way.
At 1:49 p.m., as the violence escalated, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund genl.maj. William Walker, Commanding General of the DC National Guard, to request assistance.
Sund’s voice cracked with emotion, Walker later told a Senate committee. Walker immediately called army leaders to inform them of the request.
Twenty minutes later, at about 2:10 p.m., the first rioters began breaking through the doors and windows of the Senate. They then began a march through the marbled halls in search of the legislators who counted the votes. Alarms in the building announced a lockout.
Sund called Walker furiously again, asking for at least 200 guards “and to send more if they were available.”
But even with the advance preparation at the cabinet level, there was no immediate help on the way.
For the next 20 minutes, as senators ran to safety and the rioters broke into the room and fired through their desks, Army Secretary McCarthy spoke to the mayor and Pentagon leaders about Sund’s request.
On the Pentagon’s third floor of the E Ring, senior army leaders were wrapped around the phone for what they described as a “panicked” call from the DC Guard. As the seriousness of the situation became clear, McCarthy bolted from the meeting, jumped into the hallway to Miller’s office and broke into a meeting.
As the minutes passed, rioters violated additional entrances into the Capitol and pulled into the house. They broke glass in doors leading to the room and tried to gain access as a group of lawmakers were still trapped inside.
At 2:25 p.m., McCarthy told his staff to prepare to move the emergency response force to the Capitol. The power can be ready to move within 20 minutes.
At 2:44 p.m., Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by a Capitol police officer when she tried to climb through a window leading to the floor of the house.
Shortly after 3 p.m., McCarthy gave a verbal approval for the activation of 1,100 National Guard troops in support of DC police and the development of a plan for the troops’ duties, locations and unit size.
Minutes later, the Guard’s Emergency Response Force leaves Joint Base Andrews for the DC Armory. There they would prepare to go to the Capitol as soon as Miller, the acting secretary of defense, gave final approval.
Meanwhile, the joint staff set up a video teleconferencing call that remained open until about 10pm that evening, so staff could quickly communicate any updates to military leaders.
At 15:19 Pelosi and Schumer call the Pentagon for assistance and was informed that the national guard had been approved.
But military and law enforcement leaders struggled for the next 90 minutes to carry out the plan, while the army and guards called in all troops from their checkpoints, provided them with new equipment, outlined a new plan for their mission, and briefed them on their duties.
The guard troops were only prepared for traffic duties. Army leaders argued that sending them into a volatile fighting situation requires additional instructions to keep them as well as the public safe.
At 3:37 p.m., the Pentagon sent its own security forces to guard the homes of defense leaders. No troops have yet reached the Capitol.
By 3:44 p.m., congressional leaders had raised their pleas.
“Tell POTUS to tweet everyone should leave,” Schumer begged officials, using the abbreviation for the president of the United States. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Asked about the call for military active service.
At 3:48 p.m., frustrated that the DC Guard had not developed a plan to contact the police, the Pentagon’s Army Secretary moved to DC’s police headquarters to help coordinate law enforcement.
Trump breaks his silence at 16:17 and tweets to his followers to “go home and go in peace.”
Around 4:30 p.m., the military plan was finalized and Walker had the approval to send the guard to the Capitol. The reports of state capitals violated elsewhere appear to be false.
Around 4:40 p.m., Pelosi and Schumer were on the phone again with Milley and the Pentagon leadership and asked Miller to secure the perimeter.
But the problem was clear.
The leadership of Congress is accusing the National Security Apparatus of knowing that protesters were planning to assault the Capitol, the timeline said.
The call lasts 30 minutes. Pelosi’s spokesman acknowledged that there was a brief discussion of the obvious failures in the intelligence that led to the uprising.
It would take another hour before the first contingent of 155 guards was at the Capitol. Dressed in riotous equipment, they arrived at 5:20 p.m.
They started taking out the rioters, but there were few, if any, arrests. by the police.
At 20:00, the Capitol was declared safe.
___
Associated Press authors Michael Balsamo in New York, Nomaan Merchant in Houston and Mary Clare Jalonick, Jill Colvin, Eric Tucker, Zeke Miller and Colleen Long contributed to this report.