The Pentagon has J6 blood on its hands

Thanks to a precise and well-documented timeline assembled by journalist Julie Kelly’s ace researcher, Haley McLean, we now have a much clearer idea of who was responsible for the chaos and death on Jan. 6, 2021.

Spoiler alert: It wasn’t President Donald Trump. And although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police deserve a healthy share of the blame, their real crime was ineptitude.

The real crimes, the high crimes, were plotted and executed on the far side of the Potomac. Indeed, had the Pentagon brass responded as a nonpartisan military should have, J6 protester Rosanne Boyland would surely be alive today and maybe even Ashli Babbitt.

In a more honorable universe, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, would have, if not fallen on his sword, at least resigned in shame on Jan. 7.

Accepting that resignation, before resigning himself, would have been Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy.

Following the George Floyd-inspired attack on the White House in June 2020, Milley let it be widely known that he would not go along with “any further efforts by the president to deploy the machinery of war for domestic political ends.”

The only “effort” Milley had participated in to that point was a photo-op at the site of the fire-scarred historic St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street from the White House. The proudly woke Milley was embarrassed. His sympathies were with the “protesters.”

On Jan. 3, 2021, Milley attended a meeting with Trump and several others, at least four of whom, Milley among them, heard Trump request military aid to control the expected crowds on Jan. 6.

According to Milley, Trump said, “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.”

Trump continued: “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.”

The D.C. National Guard was ready to help. The Pentagon was not. According to Democratic Rep. Norma Torres, there was “widespread fear within the Department of Defense about the President using the military or other levers of the State to impact the election around the time of the 2020 election.”

In an April 2024 hearing, Torres put this comment in the form of a question to Col. Earl Matthews of the D.C. National Guard. She did not get the confirmation she expected.

“No. It was not a widespread fear,” said Matthews. “It was a fear among a clique of officers led by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who talked about a so-called Reichstag moment.”

Matthews dismissed this fear as “not a rational belief.” Irrational or not, the belief would have bloody consequences.

At 12:53 p.m. on Jan. 6, provocateur Ray Epps and his crew breached the lightly defended perimeter of the Capitol, a 45-minute or so walk from the Ellipse where Trump was still speaking. None of these people heard Trump’s speech.

At 12:58 p.m. Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund – the day’s most responsible actor – called House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, telling him, “We are getting overrun by protesters on the West Front! I need approval to request the National Guard immediately!”

Irving replied, “Let me run it up the chain,” and “I’ll call you back.” Three days earlier, Jan. 3, Sund made the same request, but Irving didn’t like “the optics of that.” He told his Senate confrere, Michael Stenger, he would “never get this by Pelosi.”

At 1:06 p.m. the undertrained Capitol Police began recklessly lobbing munitions into the midst of a rowdy but still peaceful crowd on the Capitol’s west side.

Trump wrapped up his speech at 1:10 p.m. and strenuously requested to be taken to the Capitol. Thinking it too dangerous, the Secret Service refused. Had Trump been able to make a personal appeal, it is likely the situation would have been defused.

Not until 2:08 p.m. – after 70 minutes of bureaucratic malpractice – did the Capitol Police Board approve Chief Sund’s increasingly desperate pleas for the deployment of the National Guard.

At 2:30 p.m. Milley, McCarthy and acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller met to discuss the Capitol Police request for the National Guard. At 2:43 p.m. Capitol Police Lieutenant (now Captain) Michael Byrd shot and killed the unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt.

At 3:04 p.m. acting Secretary Miller authorized Secretary McCarthy to deploy the Guard. By 3:15 p.m. the D.C. National Guard Quick Reaction Force was at the nearby armory and ready to roll.

Haley McLean documents in heartbreaking detail the bureaucratic snafus – or subversions – that kept the Guard on the shelf for the next two hours. The main culprit would seem to be McCarthy, but one senses that both he and Miller feared the wrath of the borderline mutinous Milley.

At 4:19 p.m., an hour after the National Guard should have arrived, 34-year-old Rosanne Boyland got caught in a crowd surge at the mouth of a tunnel on the Capitol’s west side.

In response, the Metropolitan PD gassed the protesters, then pushed them down some makeshift steps. Boyland got caught at the bottom of the pile.

After her fellow protesters pulled her out unconscious from the pile, MPD Officer Lila Morris beat the lifeless Boyland over the head with a stick so hard the stick snapped in two.

At 6 p.m. a frustrated D.C. National Guard finally joined the line of police officers facing the diminishing crowd on the west side of the Capitol. At 6:09 p.m. Rosanne Boyland was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

On Feb. 7, 2021, Lila Morris was one of three police officers honored for heroism at the Super Bowl. Despite inarguable video evidence of the Boyland beating, Morris has not been punished for her actions on January 6.

Nor has Captain Byrd, nor Gen. Milley, nor Secretary McCarthy, nor Rep. Pelosi, nor anyone really, save for Donald Trump.

Jack Cashill’s book “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” is available in all formats.