As Kamala Harris and Democrats continue to use January 6 as a campaign issue, it is important to recall those responsible for preventing the National Guard from protecting the Capitol.
Thanks to the surgeon-like precision of my researcher Haley McLean, this timeline (we believe) represents the most exhaustive one to date showing the requests and denials related to the deployment of the D.C. National Guard before and on January 6, 2021. Events have been curated from a number of resources including congressional testimony, internal agency investigations, media coverage, videos, and book excerpts.
We preface the timeline with critical context and information about the lead-up to January 6 involving key political operatives and known foes of President Trump.
Summer 2020
Jamie Fleet, then-Democratic staffer for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Committee on House Administration (chaired, at the time, by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who was later appointed to Pelosi’s January 6 Select Committee) had a team of counselors working in anticipation of coming debates and objections from states—including Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia—about the certification of the electoral college vote. Knowing that objections would likely be raised on January 6, Fleet’s team began contingency planning to prepare for the possibility that the proceedings would “not [be] traditional.”
June 2020
- Following the June 1 photo op at Lafayette Square during the BLM riots in Washington, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley contemplated resigning. Sitting in his Pentagon office, Milley wrote several drafts of a letter of resignation. Milley sought advice from a wide circle of confidants, including Joseph Dunford, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs under the Obama administration; retired Army General James Dubik; members of Congress; former officials with the George W. Bush and Obama administrations; and Robert Gates, former secretary of Defense and CIA chief. Most agreed with Gates’s advice: “Make them fire you. Don’t resign.”
- After Lafayette Square, Gates told both Gen. Milley and then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper that, “given Trump’s increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior, they needed to stay in the Pentagon as long as they could.”
By Julie Kelly and Haley McLean
