The National Guard and state forces responded at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after Trump rioters stormed the building during the election college count.
According to Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman, the Washington DC National Guard of about 1,100 was mobilized to help federal law enforcement stop the uprising. The Department of Justice will lead the federal response to law enforcement, Hoffman said.
Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller said he had coordinated with Vice President Mike Pence and congressional leaders to activate the National Guard and help officers retake the Capitol. He mentioned no contact with President Donald Trump.
“We are prepared to provide additional support as needed and appropriate as requested by local authorities,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our people are sworn to defend the constitution and our democratic form of government and they will act accordingly.”
Virginia government Ralph Northam also said he would send his state’s national guard along with 200 state troops to the Capitol. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan added that he had told the Maryland National Guard to send a power to the federal legislature.
Both Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Home Office Nancy Pelosi have called for the national guard to respond, two sources told NBC.
Trump supporters stand on the armored vehicle of the U.S. Capitol Police while others take over the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, while Congress works to ratify the votes of the Electoral College.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Earlier in the week, Miller approved a request from Bowser to deploy 340 National Guard troops to the city to support local authorities during pro-Trump protests scheduled in the country’s capital, according to Hoffman. The mission, which Miller approved, ordered unarmed members of the National Guard to assist traffic and support local police with crowd control.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the guard was “with other federal protection services” on Wednesday afternoon. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., Told NBC News she spoke to Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. She said the government, by sending the National Guard, ” wants to bring the Capitol complex under control with so little bloodshed. ”
Protesters spurred by Trump’s call to stop the 2020 presidential election entered the Capitol relatively comfortably on Wednesday afternoon despite efforts by U.S. Capitol police to stop a rise to the floor of the legislature. Photos of reporters in the Capitol at one point showed officers in an armed backlog behind a barrier while rioters tried to enter the living room.
The violation forced lawmakers, some of whom had to wear gas masks, to travel through tear gas clouds to evacuate to safe places. While the government was trying to regain control of the Capitol, an FBI team was among the forces that entered the building, according to an NBC News video.
The Capitol outbreak has halted the formal count of President Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump in 2020. Dozens of Republicans in Congress, backed by the president, have begun disputing state results based on unfounded allegations of widespread fraud.
Trump spoke to his supporters on Wednesday and lied again that he had won the election before descending on the Capitol. As rioters stormed the building, Trump tweeted, “No violence!”
Later, he told his supporters to ‘go home’, even though he repeated the lies that led them to besiege the Capitol in the first place.
Democrats and many Republicans have urged Trump to end the siege.
“I call on this mob to withdraw and continue the work of democracy,” Biden said Wednesday afternoon.
In a joint statement, Nancy Pelosi, President of the Democratic House, D-California, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., called on Trump “to demand that all protesters leave the U.S. Capitol.” and must leave Capitol Grounds immediately. “
Former law enforcers and defense officials have also questioned how Trump supporters broke into the Capitol when the federal government knew for weeks that riots could strike Washington.
“I think it’s the most shocking failure imaginable to place the United States Congress with a physical risk in an occupied congressional chamber because they were unwilling to deal with it,” Ret said. General Barry McCaffrey said on CNBC’s ‘Closing Bell’ on Wednesday.
The country’s ten living secretaries of defense wrote an ominous warning on Sunday that the U.S. military should play no part in the outcome of a U.S. election.
“Each of us has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We have not sworn it to an individual or a party,” wrote Defense Secretary Mark Esper. , James Mattis, Ash Carter, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Robert Gates, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld in a report published Sunday in The Washington Post.
The former Secretary of Defense, who has been jointly overseeing America’s military forces for nearly 50 years, argued that “the time for questioning the results” of the US presidential election is over.
“Our election has taken place. Surveys and audits have been done. The courts have addressed appropriate challenges. Governors have confirmed the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results is over; the time for the formal counting of the results has passed. Electoral College votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statutes, have arrived, ‘wrote the former Secretary of Defense, including two who served under Trump.
The secretaries appealed to Trump’s acting secretary of defense, Miller, as well as political appointees and government officials to “refrain from political action that undermines the outcome of the election or hinders the success of the new team.”
– Kevin Stankiewicz of CNBC contributed to this report
This story unfolds. Please come and check for updates.
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