Pentagon leaders prioritized 'optics' over saving lives on Jan. 6, new US House report claims

Former President Donald J. Trump’s orders to keep Jan. 6 protests in Washington, D.C., safe were ignored by the same top Pentagon leaders who slow-walked the U.S. Capitol Police chief’s urgent advance and same-day calls for help from the National Guard, according to new transcripts released by a U.S. House subcommittee.

Friday’s release of a tranche of documents related to Jan. 6 backs up an extensive account of the National Guard failure published Sept. 19 by Blaze News.

There are dozens of transcripts given by individuals to the Jan. 6 Select Committee, the DOD Inspector General, and the House Committee on Administration Subcommittee on Oversight. They describe conversations that took place at the White House, the Pentagon, the Capitol Police Command Center, and other venues on Jan. 6.

“Pentagon leadership prioritized concerns of optics over their duty to protect lives,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.

“President Trump met with senior Pentagon leaders and directed them to make sure any events on January 6, 2021, were safe,” Loudermilk said in a statement. “It is very concerning that these senior Pentagon officials ignored President Trump’s guidance and misled congressional leaders to believe they were doing their job, when they were not.”

The transcripts strike at the heart of the false stories originating with the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee that claimed President Trump did nothing to enable National Guard coverage at the Capitol and prevent violence on Jan. 6. They are also an indictment of the Department of Defense Inspector General's report on Jan. 6, which senior leaders of the D.C. National Guard have said was full of errors and fabrications.

“The DOD IG’s report is fundamentally flawed,” Loudermilk said. “It does not draw conclusions from the interviews they conducted but pushes a narrative to keep their hands clean. We have many questions for them, and we will continue to dig until we are satisfied the American people know the truth.”

It is the second major disclosure on Jan. 6 and the National Guard by the Subcommittee on Oversight since an April public hearing, when four D.C. National Guard whistleblowers testified that the truth of Jan. 6 was being hidden and twisted by senior Pentagon leaders. It backs up earlier testimony given before multiple congressional committees over two years by Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund.

Sund has said the rioting and vandalism that broke out at the Capitol on Jan. 6 would have been avoided entirely if the House and Senate sergeants at arms had not blocked his Jan. 3 request for National Guard presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving told the late Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger that they needed to head off Sund's request for the Guard because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “will never go for it.”

Casey Wardynski, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs, said the transcripts are consistent with his recollections from Jan. 6. Wardynski participated in a video conference between D.C. National Guard officials and senior Pentagon leaders including Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt.

“It fits with the picture I had on January 6, which was people in the Pentagon were mostly concerned with themselves or their organization, rather than the United States,” Wardynski told Blaze News. “And if they'd only put the United States first, things would have gone much better.”

The D.C. National Guard's commander, Maj. Gen. William Walker, had extraordinary restrictions placed on his troops by then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, whose disappearing act on Jan. 6 left Guardsmen sitting on buses blocks from the Capitol, unable to move, Loudermilk said.

Walker “tried to call Secretary McCarthy three times between 2:30 and 5 p.m.,” said D.C. National Guard Brig. Gen. Aaron Dean. “He said, ‘I haven’t heard from him all day.’ When he tried to call his cell phone, it went straight to voicemail.”

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According to the new transcripts, acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller was among senior Pentagon uniformed staff who — at least initially — opposed sending the National Guard to the Capitol.

“There was absolutely – there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol, period,” Miller said in one transcript.

That sentiment flew directly in the face of direction given by President Trump at a Jan. 3 meeting at the White House. Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled the conversation this way:

“The President just says, ‘Hey, look at this. There’s going to be a large amount of protesters here on the 6th, make sure that you have sufficient National Guard or soldiers to make sure it’s a safe event,’” Milley said. “[POTUS said], ‘I don’t care if you use Guard, or soldiers, active-duty soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe.'”

President Trump's statements, quoted by one of his loudest military critics, blow a new hole in the insurrection narrative pushed relentlessly by the former Jan. 6 Select Committee and congressional Democrats. Trump's second impeachment by the House and later prosecution by the Department of Justice were underpinned by the narrative that he led an insurrection to keep Joe Biden from taking office on Jan. 20, 2021.

'Their desire was not to get to the truth.'

Miller approved the use of the D.C. National Guard and ordered McCarthy to move troops to the Capitol at 3:04 p.m., but the order from McCarthy to Maj. Gen. Walker wasn't transmitted until 5:08 p.m. By the time Guard members put boots on the ground at the Capitol, it was too late.

Miller testified that McCarthy had all the authority that he needed to dispatch the National Guard at 3:04 p.m., but McCarthy felt he needed to design his own implementation plan first, which he brought back to Miller around 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 6.

By that time, Sund had activated the National Capital Region mutual-aid system and received help from 1,700 law enforcement officers from as far away as New Jersey. When the Guard arrived, police had cleared the Capitol and moved rioters away from the Lower West Terrace tunnel, basically ending the Jan. 6 riot.

Wardynski said he found the transcript quotes from Miller surprising, based on his book and other public testimony.

“In the book, it was, 'Send the Guard, send everybody that you need to send,’" Wardynski said. “And that quote doesn't reflect that viewpoint at all.”

Col. Earl G. Matthews, who served as Walker's adjutant on Jan. 6 and testified as a whistleblower at an April 2024 House hearing, said he is glad to see the lawmakers continuing to uncover the truth from Jan. 6.

“I really applaud Congressman Loudermilk and his team for having the fidelity to the truth to take a look at this,” Matthews said. “The DOD IG — people were not honest. Obviously they weren't honest. The January 6 committee was an abomination. Their desire was not to get to the truth.”

Matthews filed a whistleblower complaint with the Department of Defense in 2023 after he said he faced retaliation for his brusque comments about Flynn and Piatt. Matthews had been recommended for the next brigadier general opening in the Army Reserve, but he has been denied the promotion because of his protected disclosures to Congress, the complaint said.

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