Two senior Pentagon officials, who had been appointed by Donald Trump, were singled out during a Senate hearing on Wednesday for their role in the slow response by security forces to the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6 .
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Several witnesses claimed that the nearly three-and-a-half-hour delay in the deployment of the National Guard was due to the fact that decision-making power was only held by the former acting defense minister, Christopher Miller, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, two allies of Donald Trump.
According to General William Walker, commander of the Washington National Guard, Ryan McCarthy had even said that a “rapid reaction force”, which stood ready to respond to violence, could not be deployed without its green light. .
Mr Walker said the delay meant that force had been unavailable during the height of the violence, which left five people dead.
The green light for the deployment of the National Guard was “finally given by the Minister of Defense by interim and was transmitted to me by officials of the Army at 5:08 PM,” William Walker said during a briefing. joint hearing Wednesday before two Senate committees.
“It shouldn’t take three hours,” he said.
The general specified that MM. Miller and McCarthy had not been available for a 2:30 p.m. phone call about the situation.
But, he added, McCarthy’s aides who joined the call said they opposed the deployment of the National Guard because they “thought it would be messy.”
They also claimed that sending the soldiers in uniform would fuel the anger of the rioters, Walker said.
Robert Salesses, a senior Defense Ministry official, confirmed that Christopher Miller – appointed by Donald Trump on November 9, nearly a week after his defeat in the presidential election – had ruled that the decision to it was up to him to activate the National Guard.
Mr. “Miller wanted to decide how the National Guard was going to be used that day,” he said at the hearing.