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Johnny McEntee: Enforcer of Trump’s Authority to Invoke the Insurrection Act

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CNN’s ace Prettyman stakeout reporters spied John McEntee, Trump’s body man turned personnel enforcer, going into a grand jury appearance Friday.

That led me to spend quality time with his January 6 Committee transcript this weekend; I was trying to get a sense of whether this interview — one of the first that would have been scheduled after DOJ had an opportunity to read J6C transcripts turned over in early December — gave a sense of why Jack Smith prioritized McEntee.

I agree with CNN, this is likely part of it:

When testifying to the House committee, McEntee recalled a meeting in the Oval Office on Vice President Mike Pence’s role in certifying the election, in which he said he was asked to look into precedent. McEntee also recounted in-person exchanges between Trump and Pence, in which he heard Trump say, “Michael, do the right thing,” and “Do what you think is right, Mike.”

Here’s how it appears in the transcript.

Q Did you ever witness any conversations between the President and the Vice President about the Vice President’s role?

A No. No.

Q Or any phone calls? Anything like that?

A I remember the President saying, “Michael, do the right thing.” You know, “Do what you think is right, Mike.” That’s all I heard him say.

Q You heard him say that to Vice President Pence?

A Yeah.

Q Was it over the phone or in person?

A In person.

Q Okay. And was that in the Oval Office?

A Yeah.

Q Was anybody else there?

A I think Short was there, yeah.

Q Do you remember when that was?

A I don’t. It was, like, when he was going up for the evening, the President, and they were just finishing something up, so I came in to, like, grab all his stuff, and then he said that to him.

Q Okay.

A At the conclusion of the day at some point.

Q And did the Vice President say anything in response?

A No. He just nodded.

If credible, it would be exculpatory. DOJ needs to interview anyone who might have exculpatory information before they make a decision to charge Trump.

They may also be trying to get all testimony about Trump’s comments to Mike Pence before they move to interview Mike Pence, because they’d need to make a case they couldn’t get his testimony anywhere else.

But McEntee was not particularly credible, and I would imagine with call records and other testimony, DOJ would be able to prove that.

Indeed, even in the J6C testimony, McEntee got caught providing a dubious explanation for a call he had with Trump after the attack on January 6. At first, he claimed most of his conversation with Trump consisted of “colorful” comments about the people who resigned on January 6.

Q Did President Trump ever talk to you about the events of January 6th even after the fact?

A Just vaguely that night when we spoke.

Q Okay. Tell us about that conversation.

A I called, and I just went down the list of all the people who had resigned.

And then we discussed a little bit about each just colorfully. And then he just said this is a crazy day and, you know, I’ll see you tomorrow. But he didn’t go into many details.

Q Okay. Can you remember anything else he said about the events of that day?

A I can’t, other than he acknowledged that it was, like, wild, and we would talk tomorrow, you know, or next — we’ll see you in the morning, or something like that.

Q Okay.

A We were mostly going through all these people that resigned, and then kind of talked about them. And I was just relaying, because O’Brien called me and said you got to let him know I’m not resigning. So then I called, and he said, well, who has resigned? And then, like, I went through the list of the ones I knew at the time. And then the next day some more came out.

Q When the President said it was a crazy day, or something to that effect, what was his tone?

Q A Kind of like a little disbelief. Like, wow, like, can you believe this shit, you know?

A  Did he express any sadness over the violence?

Q No. I mean, I think he was shocked by, you know, it getting a little out of control, but I don’t remember sadness, specifically.

But in a final question, J6C pointed out the problem with that. Trump didn’t know any of the people who resigned on January 6; the people he knew who resigned only resigned on January 7.

Q I just want to ask, that conversation that January 6th evening, I think from the — the diary indicates it’s a 20-minute-long conversation. And you described it.

Many of the people who resigned that day Mr. Trump didn’t even know. In fact, the ones that he did know didn’t resign till the next day.

So 20 minutes is a long conversation, Mr. McEntee, and I’m wondering if you could just describe, when you say “disbelief” and “day is crazy,” what more color can you add to the feelings of that day as expressed to you?

A You know, it’s hard to remember, honestly. I don’t remember any details we went into about it. I know we went through each person, and I had to explain who each person was, so that took a minute or two on each –

There are other parts of McEntee’s testimony that strain credulity. He has little explanation for how he spent his day on January 6. He claimed not to understand most of what he was doing as he served as a go-between, between Steve Bannon and the White House via Bannon’s Chief of Staff Alexandra Preate. His response to being asked about a rumor that he slept at the White House for several days after the attack was weak — “not that I’m aware of.”

McEntee also described Trump using his (McEntee’s) phone — and he was a bit squishy about whether it was just his White House phone, or also his personal one — from time to time. McEntee likely learned this habit from working with Keith Schiller, who offered the same service as a body man.

But there’s an aspect of McEntee’s testimony that is far more alarming.

Shortly after returning to the White House in 2020, he was elevated to run personnel. He was wildly unqualified for the task, as intended for a government bureaucracy, but he was quite adept at politicizing every bit of the political appointment process, and demanding absolutely loyalty in the process.

And in that role, McEntee served as a means to drive the policy of the entire Pentagon.

The committee first reviewed McEntee’s role in firing Mark Esper for refusing to invoke the Insurrection Act during the summer of 2020. Then it turned to how, after simply interviewing Douglas MacGregor for an advisory role at the Pentagon, McEntee sent a memo to DOD ordering them, days after the election was called for Biden, to withdraw from Afghanistan and Somalia.

The exchange led his attorney, David Warrington, who at the time was paid by Trump’s PAC and who still represents a slew of January 6 witnesses, to go on an extended complaint about the scope of questions.

McEntee’s role in enforcing policy came up again in an exchange about the response to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy saying, on December 18, that the military would play no role in determining the outcome of the election.

On December 18th, the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, and the Army Chief of Staff issued a statement that there was no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election.

Do you remember what impact, if any, that had on the White House?

A I don’t remember that being brought up.

Q Do you remember conveying a message to Secretary Miller about the White House’s frustration that DOD, particularly the Secretary of Army, had issued such a  statement?

A No, I don’t remember. I don’t remember that.

Q Secretary Miller told the committee that he was contacted by you soon after the statement was made and you asked why McCarthy made the statement and, quote, “wanted me,” meaning Mr. Miller, “to remind McCarthy that the President was not going to — it was — I know this sounds kind of wonky, but it was an authorities issue. He,” meaning you, “said the President is not going to invoke the Insurrection Act but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t, which I thought was an interesting comment because it dealt with the authority, not so much — the concern was not with what McCarthy said, was the way I interpreted it. It was the fact that the Secretary of Army was saying he had authorities that actually resided with the President.”

This was a response to Mike Flynn’s call for martial law, but it also came after Stewart Rhodes had already called for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act several times. And it also came as Flynn and others were advising Trump to seize the voting machines.

After getting McEntee to deny remembering this and claiming any interference at DOD was simply in his role as Assistant to the President, J6C then brought out a note, written by McEntee, that Trump or someone else had ripped up before it was preserved by the Archives.

It showed that McEntee had intervened in this response in a personnel, not an assistant, function — because he got Miller to agree to fire McCarthy and others if they ever made comments about DOD’s role in the election again.

McEntee claimed he remembers none of that.

Q One second. Sorry.

These are handwritten notes that have been produced to us from the National Archives.

Is that your handwriting, Mr. McEntee?

A It looks like it, yes.

Q And it looks like the page has been torn. But it says, “Chris Miller spoke to both of them and anticipates no more statements coming out.” And then in parentheses, “If another happens, he will fire them.”

Do you remember writing this?

A No, I don’t remember writing this.

Q But this is your handwriting?

A Yes.

Q So, just want to be clear. This is your handwriting, but you have no memory of calling Secretary Miller and requesting him to call Secretary McCarthy to express the President’s disappointment with the statement regarding there’s no role of military in the United States election?

This is important background to McCarthy’s indolent response to the attack on January 6. Trump’s chief enforcer had already intervened to make sure he didn’t do anything to fall afoul of Trump’s whims.

But it’s also important background to another comment in the interview.

As I suggested in this post, the J6C transcripts make it clear that a long-public reference to Trump requesting 10,000 National Guard on January 3 was misrepresented, no doubt deliberately so. Trump made the request not, as reported, in the interest of keeping his followers safe. Rather, he first floated having 10,000 Guard after it became clear the National Park Service would not approve a permit for a march to the Capitol, out of security concerns.

Effectively, Trump floated having 10,000 Guard present on January 6 to enable his march to the Capitol.

And that, plus McEntee’s role in firing Esper because he refused to invoke the Insurrection Act and his threats of firing McCarthy because he said DOD would not intervene in the election, makes this reference all the more chilling. When asked about his role in the rally, McEntee described that he intervened to ask Christopher Miller to involve the Guard.

Q Did you have any conversations with the President that day?

A Only that night.

Q Okay. We’ll get to that in a minute. Did you go to the rally on the Ellipse?

A No.

Q Were you involved in any conversations about planning the rally?

A No.

Q Were you aware of any discussions about groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, or anybody else being involved in the protests?

A I was not. The only thing I had to do that even remotely dealt with the rally was the President wanted to make sure it was safe. And either a day or two or three before, he had me call Chris Miller and ask if we could bring the National Guard in.

Q Okay. What did Mr. Miller say?

A I think he said he would look into it.

Q And do you know if anything happened after that?

A I don’t know if anything happened or came of it, no.

Q Did you report back to the President on what Secretary Miller said?

A I just let him know that I relayed his message to Chris, yeah.

Having earlier claimed not to recall using threats of firing to make demands on DOD and having earlier disclaimed any knowledge of Trump’s plan to walk to the Capitol, here’s the bullshit explanation McEntee offered for why Trump wanted to involve the Guard.

Q And did the President say anything about why he wanted the National Guard there?

A I think because that summer we had the Republican Convention. And if you remember, like, Rand Paul was getting attacked in the street. And, I don’t know, it just got kind of crazy. So this time he thought we’re going to have so many people, like, you know, we need to make sure that this city is safe. That kind of a thing.

Q Do you know why he said it to you?

A No, I think it was just on his mind and I just happened to be next to him. So he said call Chris and let him know. So I just called Chris.

Q Were you traveling at the time?

A We could have been, like, golfing, yeah, or something. You know, we could have been at his golf course maybe.

As I said above, I agree with CNN that one thing Jack Smith’s team would have wanted to ask McEntee about was his claim to have heard, alone among all known witnesses, Trump say something exculpatory.

DOJ would also want to see whether McEntee wanted to reiterate some of the more fantastic claims he made to J6C, especially knowing that DOJ would have the legal means to disprove some of them.

DOJ likely would want to ask about a conversation McEntee had with Trump, along with Dan Scavino (who has definitely appeared before the grand jury) and Molly Michael (who has definitely been interviewed in the stolen document case and likely interviewed in J6C), about testifying to J6C.

But depending on what other witnesses DOJ has already interviewed, DOJ may want to know more about McEntee’s role in arranging an ostensible Praetorian Guard for the President as he walked to the Capitol as they moved to certify his loss.

McEntee was among the people referred to, publicly at least, in the mix for a pardon after January 6. In his interview, McEntee only discussed that pardon, if it happened, in the context of a blanket pardon for staffers involved in January 6.

It was never entirely clear why McEntee might need one.

Unless he has knowledge of Trump’s attempt to use the National Guard as a Praetorian Guard to accompany his own march on the Capitol.

The Hole in the Senate January 6 Report Created by DOJ’s Non-Cooperation

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The Senate Rules/Homeland Security Report on January 6 is as helpful for the holes it identifies as it is for the questions it answers.

The most amazing hole pertains to the actions of the Secret Service. The report notes that the Secret Service attended a preparatory meeting on January 5, and like the FBI, Secret Service raised no warnings about the violent mob that their primary protectee was convening in DC.

He has stated that in a January 5 meeting with USCP leadership, members of the Capitol Police Board, and officials from the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, and DCNG, no entity “provided any intelligence indicating that there would be a coordinated violent attack on the United States Capitol by thousands of well-equipped armed insurrectionists.”153

The Report notes that then-Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund called Secret Service and asked for help on the day of the riot.

At 1:01 p.m., Mr. Sund also requested assistance from the United States Secret Service.79

[snip]

Mr. Sund testified that he first contacted MPD, followed closely by the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division.457

But the language about the agencies that did come to help does not mention Secret Service.

After 3:00 p.m., additional reinforcements from federal agencies began to arrive, and USCP turned to extracting and securing congressional staff.111 A number of agencies and entities provided assistance, including DHS; the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Montgomery County Police Department; the Arlington County Police Department; the Fairfax Police Department; and Virginia State Troopers.112 With this help, USCP secured the Senate and House chambers, along with the basement, subways, first floor, and crypts by 4:28 p.m. 113 DCNG personnel began arriving at the Capitol at approximately 5:20 p.m.114 By 6:14 p.m., USCP, DCNG, and MPD successfully established a security perimeter on the west side of the Capitol building.115

We’ve been focusing for months on the delayed response from DOD, but all this time Secret Service’s role has gone little noticed (and I’m still interested in Park Police’s absence). The silence here suggests that Secret Service blew off an explicit call for help as a mob threatened both Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.

As the report notes, Secret Service’s lead agency, DHS, has not yet fully complied with the Senate’s information requests.

Most entities cooperated with the Committees’ requests. There were notable exceptions, however: the Department of Justice and DHS have yet to fully comply with the Committees’ requests for information, the Office of the House of Representatives Sergeant at Arms did not comply with the Committees’ information requests, and a USCP Deputy Chief of Police declined to be interviewed by the Committees.

As to DOD’s slow response in deploying the Guard on the day of the attack, the report suggests that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy had a key role in it.

There are multiple conflicting stories about what happened at DOD. It was clear from his testimony that former Acting Secretary Christopher Miller genuinely didn’t understand how much of a delay there was with the deployment of the National Guard. An important detail included in the report is that Miller believed the Guard had his okay to deploy by 3:04, but McCarthy dawdled until after 4:32, after other law enforcement had secured much of the Capitol.

By 4:32 p.m., Mr. McCarthy and his D.C. counterparts had agreed upon a “task and purpose” for DCNG, “identif[ied] link-up locations, and confirm[ed] key leaders at each site.”656 Accounts differ as to who within DOD needed to approve the final plan in order to deploy DCNG troops to the Capitol. Mr. McCarthy briefed Mr. Miller on the plan, who raised no objections.657 But Mr. Miller informed the Committees that he did not need to approve the plan—in his view, his 3:04 p.m. authorization was all encompassing and as soon as Mr. McCarthy and General Walker finished their mission analysis, DCNG had all necessary authorizations to deploy.658 General McConville informed the Committees that, although he did not know for sure, he believed Mr. Miller did need to approve the deployment plan.659

The reason why McCarthy dawdled is important, though.

After a bunch of conflicting excuses about the delay itself, there’s a section addressing why the Quick Reaction Force wasn’t deployed (ironically, given that the Oath Keepers seemed more prepared to release theirs than the entire DOD). After yet more conflicting excuses, McCarthy said that one reason the QRF couldn’t be deployed was because DOD needed to “link up with an organization and contact.”

General Walker also testified that the QRF was outfitted with all the equipment needed to go to the Capitol and was “ready to go” before 5:00 p.m.694 General McConville stated that “there was never an intent to have a quick reaction force going in to clear the Capitol.”695 Neither Mr. McCarthy nor Mr. Miller recalled whether the QRF had its civil disturbance gear available at Joint Base Andrews. Mr. McCarthy also noted that he was never informed that the QRF was at the Armory, equipped, and prepared to depart for the Capitol.696 When asked whether the QRF was properly equipped to respond to the Capitol, even if that was not the original intent, General McConville reiterated the importance of the assigned mission: “it depends on what the mission was.”697

Mr. McCarthy also acknowledged that, even if properly equipped, the QRF still needed to be briefed on the new mission.698 “I wanted to be clear of the concept for operations and how we were going to bring these [available DCNG personnel, including the QRF] together, make sure they ha[d] the right equipment, a clear understanding of their mission, and then link up with an organization and contact.

In other words, the reason the Pentagon couldn’t send a QRF to fight mobs prepared with their own QRF was because there was no lead agency to oversee them.

One of the most important sections of this report describes how Trump made DOJ — the same agency that had deployed even BOP officials during the summer — the lead agency on January 6. But DOJ did nothing. Miller explained that’s why he got so involved — because DOJ did nothing. “Somebody needed to do it,” he explained. And then McCarthy repeatedly used the lack of a lead federal agency as his excuse not to deploy the Guard. This discussion of DOJ’s disavowals of being the lead federal agency is one of the few areas where the report reiterates that an agency refused to cooperate with the Senate.

All DOD officials interviewed stressed the importance of the designation of a lead federal agency to support operations on January 6. The lead federal agency is “the nexus and locus for all information flow” and ensures that everything is coordinated and synchronized across federal agencies and departments.556 Mr. Miller noted that DOD “should never, ever be the lead federal agency for domestic law enforcement,” except for the establishment of martial law.557 Indeed, Mr. McCarthy required an agency to be designated before supporting the Mayor’s request for National Guard assistance. 558 According to Mr. McCarthy, on January 4, the White House designated DOJ as the lead federal agency for January 6: “Sunday evening, after Acting Secretary Miller and General Milley met with the President, they got the lead [f]ederal agency established, all of the pieces started coming together.”559 Mr. Miller also recalled that DOJ was designated as the lead federal agency at some point prior to January 6, but he did not know what role the White House played in the decision.560

Although DOD understood that DOJ was designated as the lead federal agency, there appears to have been no clearly established point of contact within the department, according to Mr. McCarthy, which he found “concerning.”561 Prior to January 6, Mr. McCarthy sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen outlining the Army’s operational plan in support of the Mayor’s request and reached out informally to David Bowdich, FBI Deputy Director, because the two had worked together previously.562 But Mr. McCarthy claimed, even during the attack, he was never provided an official point of contact at DOJ and had no contact with DOJ or FBI officials until approximately 4:00 p.m. 563 General McConville also stated that DOJ was designated as the lead federal agency; however, he noted that DOJ did not conduct any interagency rehearsals or have an integrated security plan, as DOJ did during the summer 2020 protests when it had also been designated as the lead federal agency.564 General McConville stressed the importance of integrated security plans and acknowledged that had there been one on January 6, DOD’s response time would have been quicker.565

In contrast, Mr. Miller stated Richard Donoghue, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, served as DOJ’s operational lead on January 6.566 Notably, however, Mr. Miller acknowledged that, during the attack, he convened calls with Cabinet members to share information and ensure everyone was on the same page.567 When asked why he convened the calls, as opposed to the lead federal agency, Mr. Miller responded, “somebody needed to do it.”568 Mr. Miller was not familiar with any actions DOJ took to coordinate the federal response on January 6.569

On May 12, 2021, Jeffrey Rosen, the Acting Attorney General on January 6, testified at a House Oversight hearing that it was “not accurate” that DOJ was the lead federal agency for security preparations on January 6. 570 He stated that DOJ’s responsibilities were specific to intelligence coordinating and information sharing.571 DOJ has not acknowledged that it was designated the lead federal agency for January 6 and has yet to fully comply with the Committees’ requests for information. 572

In this post, I suggested the January 6 investigation hypothetically could (which is no guarantee it will) reach far more of the potentially criminal behavior than virtually everyone not following closely believes.

But in addition to the two areas where I expressed doubt that could happen — members of Congress, and DOD itself — this report makes it clear that DOJ remains a key subject that should be investigated.

It’s not at all clear that the FBI can or would investigate DOJ’s former top leaders.

Admittedly, DOJ — along with DOD, DHS, and Interior — is conducting a review of DOJ’s role that day and in weeks leading up to it (it’s not clear DHS’ review will include Secret Service, which has its own IG).

Review Examining the Role and Activity of DOJ and its Components in Preparing for and Responding to the Events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is initiating a review to examine the role and activity of DOJ and its components in preparing for and responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The DOJ OIG will coordinate its review with reviews also being conducted by the Offices of Inspector General of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of the Interior. The DOJ OIG review will include examining information relevant to the January 6 events that was available to DOJ and its components in advance of January 6; the extent to which such information was shared by DOJ and its components with the U.S. Capitol Police and other federal, state, and local agencies; and the role of DOJ personnel in responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The DOJ OIG also will assess whether there are any weaknesses in DOJ protocols, policies, or procedures that adversely affected the ability of DOJ or its components to prepare effectively for and respond to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. If circumstances warrant, the DOJ OIG will consider examining other issues that may arise during the review.

The DOJ OIG is mindful of the sensitive nature of the ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions related to the events of January 6. Consistent with long-standing OIG practice, in conducting this review, the DOJ OIG will take care to ensure that the review does not interfere with these investigations or prosecutions.

DOJ IG has suggested that it is looking into the late Trump term shenanigans. But it’s not clear that it would look at why DOJ let a violent mob assault the Capitol.

Which, given the Senate report, is an issue that needs far more scrutiny.

How Did the Proud Boys Have Better Lines of Communication about National Guard Reinforcements than the National Guard Did?

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At 3:38 on January 6, according to the Proud Boy leaders conspiracy indictment, Charles Donohoe announced on the 60-member operational Telegram channel the Proud Boys used that day that, “we are regrouping.”

Sometime around that time, a bunch of Oath Keepers, having already entered the Capitol, were gathered together on the east side of the Capitol.

According to the most recent Oath Keepers indictment, two minutes after Donohoe announced the Proud Boy plan to regroup, at 3:40, Oath Keeper Joshua James called Person Ten — who was doing much of the coordination for the Oath Keepers that day — and had a 3 minute, 4 second phone call, their second longest call described in the indictment.

Roberto Minuta and Rhodes exchanged two calls just after 4:00 — 42 seconds, then 2 minutes 56 seconds. At 4:10, according to a Thomas Caldwell detention motion, someone on the Oath Keepers’ operational channel said, “Fight the good fight. Stand your ground.”

It seems the militias were preparing for a second, seemingly coordinated, operation of the day: resuming the assault on the Capitol.

Indeed, some of the fighting and attempted breaches at the Capitol did intensify about that time (for example, that’s shortly before, as some cops were trying to help Rosanne Boyland, who had been trampled, they were allegedly assaulted by James Lopatic, Jeffrey Sabol, Peter Stager, and Wade Whitten, with police officer BW being dragged down the steps prone and beaten).

But not the militias, at least not the Proud Boys.

According to the government’s detention memo for Donohoe, he subsequently — they don’t provide the time — sent out a message that the National Guard and DHS agents were incoming.

Donohoe’s intent to create mayhem and disrupt the proceedings at the Capitol continued well after the initial breach into the restricted grounds and up to the west terrace. Indeed, at 3:38 p.m., more than an hour after Pezzola and others had broken into the building, Donohoe indicated that he had left the Capitol grounds, but then announced over Telegram, “We are regrouping with a second force.” That plan appears to have been short-lived, as Donohoe subsequently advised the group that the National Guard and “DHS agents” were “incoming.”

This is fairly remarkable timing, as it came during the most inexplicable period of DOD’s delayed response with the National Guard. At 2:30, just before the second breach by militia-led groups, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller met with (among others) Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy about requests for help from the city and the Capitol Police. At 3, Miller determines the Guard is needed at the Capitol and McCarthy orders them to prepare to move. At 3:04, Miller provides verbal approval for the Guard to support MPD. At 3:19 and 3:26, McCarthy was on the phone with first Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and then Bowser, assuring them the Guard was on the way. At 3:48, McCarthy leaves to go to MPD headquarters, taking 22 minutes to transit, even as two trained militia groups full of military veterans prepared to make a second assault on the Capitol. At 4:32, after calls back and forth among the militia, Miller provided verbal authorization for the Guard to help the Capitol Police.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

But then, according to the guy DOD sent to the Senate to not answer questions like this, Robert Salesses, General William Walker, the guy in charge of the Guard, didn’t get that order for another 36 minutes.

Salesses: In fairness to General Walker too, that’s when the Secretary of Defense made the decision, at 4:32. As General Walker has pointed out, cause I’ve seen all the timelines, he was not told that til 5:08.

Roy Blunt: How is that possible, Mr. Salazar [sic], do you think that the decision, in the moment we were in, was made at 4:32 and the person that had to be told wasn’t told for more than a half an hour after the decision.

Salesses: Senator, I think that’s an issue.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Somehow, it seems, Proud Boy Charles Donohoe knew that the National Guard was coming to reinforce the Capitol before DC Guard Commander General Walker.

Somehow, it seems, the militias assaulting the Capitol had better lines of communication than the US Department of Defense.

Timeline

2:30PM: Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy meet to discuss the requests for assistance from the MPD and CPD.

2:40PM: Oath Keepers and Proud Boys breach second front of the Capitol.

3PM: Miller determines the Guard is needed.

3:04PM: Miller authorizes Guard assistance to MPD.

3:19PM: McCarthy on the phone with Democratic leaders. Roberto Minuta enters Capitol.

3:26PM: McCarthy on the phone with Mayor Bowser.

3:38PM: Charles Donohoe announces, “we are regrouping.”

3:40PM: James calls Person Ten, speaks for 3:04.

3:48PM: McCarthy leaves for MPD.

4PM: Meeting with Stewart Rhodes on east side of Capitol.

4:04PM: Minuta calls Rhodes, speaks for 42 seconds.

4:05PM: Rhodes calls Minuta, speaks for 2:56.

4:10PM: McCarthy arrives at MPD. Proud Boy leader channel instructs, “Stand your ground.”

4:32PM: Miller provides the verbal order for the Guard to reinforce the Capitol Police

5:08PM: General Walker gets the order to reinforce the Capitol Police

Unknown time: Donohoe advises that National Guard and “DHS” are incoming.

Chain of Command: The AWOL Descriptions of the Commander in Chief’s Role in the National Guard Non-Response on January 6

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The only formal explanation Trump has offered to describe his role in deploying the National Guard in response to the attack on the Capitol on January 6 came in his impeachment defense. As part of that defense, Bruce Castor pointed to things he claimed happened before Trump’s speech ended. In Castor’s inaccurate portrayal of the timeline, he suggested that the first action Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller took was when, at 1:05 (which Castor said was 11:05), Miller “received open source reports of demonstrator movements to the U.S. Capitol.” He continued to claim that,

At 1:09 PM, US Capitol Police Chief’s Steven Sund called the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms, telling them he wanted an emergency declared and he wanted the National Guard called. The point: given the timeline of events, the criminals at the Capitol were not there to even hear the President’s words. They were more than a mile away engaged in a preplanned assault on this very building.

Admittedly, this was probably no more than an incompetent parroting of the existing timeline released by DOD. It’s possible that Trump’s lawyers didn’t ask him what happened inside the White House that day, because if they did, it would not help their case.

Still: Trump’s own defense claimed that the first that Acting Secretary Miller did in the matter was at 1[1]:05 on January 6.

That’s mighty interesting because there have been two claims that Trump proactively offered up National Guard troops for January 6 in the days beforehand. The first came in a Vanity Fair piece written by a journalist that Trump’s DOD flunkies permitted to embed with them (he requested to do so before the insurrection, but didn’t start his embed until January 12, meaning the claims reported in this article were retrospective). That piece claimed that, the night before the attack, Trump told DOD they would need 10,000 people.

The president, Miller recalled, asked how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. “We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’” Miller responded. “And [Trump] goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking bullshit. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’” At that point Miller remembered the president telling him, “‘You do what you need to do. You do what you need to do.’ He said, ‘You’re going to need 10,000.’ That’s what he said. Swear to God.”

[snip]

“We had talked to [the president] in person the day before, on the phone the day before, and two days before that. We were given clear instructions. We had all our authorizations. We didn’t need to talk to the president. I was talking to [Trump’s chief of staff, Mark] Meadows, nonstop that day.”

[snip]

What did Miller think of the criticism that the Pentagon had dragged its feet in sending in the cavalry? He bristled. “Oh, that is complete horseshit. I gotta tell you, I cannot wait to go to the Hill and have those conversations with senators and representatives.”

[snip]

Miller and Patel both insisted, in separate conversations, that they neither tried nor needed to contact the president on January 6; they had already gotten approval to deploy forces. However, another senior defense official remembered things quite differently, “They couldn’t get through. They tried to call him”—meaning the president.

So according to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, Trump had given him “clear instructions” to “do what you need to do,” and had warned him to have thousands of Guardsmen available. Miller said he was speaking non-stop to Mark Meadows, though an anonymous source stated that they tried but failed to get the President on the line.

Long after impeachment and even after his CPAC speech, Trump went to Fox to make the same claim that appeared in Vanity Fair.

Former President Trump told Fox News late Sunday that he expressed concern over the crowd size near the Capitol days before last month’s deadly riots and personally requested 10,000 National Guard troops be deployed in response.

Trump told “The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton” that his team alerted the Department of Defense days before the rally that crowds might be larger than anticipated and 10,000 national guardsmen should be ready to deploy. He said that — from what he understands — the warning was passed along to leaders at the Capitol, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and he heard that the request was rejected because these leaders did not like the optics of 10,000 troops at the Capitol.

“So, you know, that was a big mistake,” he said.

Fox and other Trump mouthpieces have suggested that Nancy Pelosi rejected the Guard. That’s false. According to then Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund, House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving did.

On Monday, January 4, I approached the two Sergeants at Arms to request the assistance of the National Guard, as I had no authority to do so without an Emergency Declaration by the Capitol Police Board (CPB). My regular interactions with the CPB, outside of our monthly meetings regarding law enforcement matters, were conducted with the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms, the two members of the CPB who have law enforcement experience. I first spoke with the House Sergeant at Arms to request the National Guard. Mr. Irving stated that he was concerned about the “optics” of having National Guard present and didn’t feel that the intelligence supported it. He referred me to the Senate Sergeant at Arms (who is currently the Chair of the CPB) to get his thoughts on the request. I then spoke to Mr. Stenger and again requested the National Guard. Instead of approving the use of the National Guard, however, Mr. Stenger suggested I ask them how quickly we could get support if needed and to “lean forward” in case we had to request assistance on January 6.

Notably, Sund’s request and Irving’s response occurred before the conversation between Miller and Trump purportedly took place the night before the attack (which was far too late to deploy 10,000 people in any case). Moreover, Pelosi, Zoe Lofgren, and Mark Warner, among others, raised concerns about staffing for the day, so it’s not like Democrats weren’t raising the alarm.

Still, over a month after making no such claim as part of his Impeachment defense, Trump and his flunkies want to claim that Trump was proactive about deploying 10,000 people to defend the Capitol against his most ardent supporters.

That’s interesting background to the testimony offered by Robert Salesses, the “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security,” in a joint Rules/Homeland Committee hearing on January 6 yesterday. As several people noted during the hearing, for some reason DOD sent Salesses, who wasn’t involved in the key events on January 6, rather than people like General Walter Piatt or General [Mike’s brother] Charles Flynn — who were on a call with MPD Chief Robert Contee and Sund on January 6 and who have made disputed claims about what occurred, including that Piatt recommended against sending the Guard because of optics. Effectively, Salesses was repeating what others told him, offering no better (indeed, more dated) information than Vanity Fair was able to offer. Salesses apparently called General Piatt the day before and dutifully repeated Piatt’s claim that he did not use the word, “optics,” which DC National Guard Commander General William Walker had just testified did occur.

General Piatt told me yesterday, Senator, that he did not use the word, “optics.”

Salesses then gave more excuses, explaining,

Senator, in fairness to the committee, General Piatt is not a decision-maker. The only decision-makers on the Sixth of January were the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy. It was a chain of command from the Secretary of Defense to Secretary McCarthy to General Walker. That was the chain of command.

General Walker, the Commander of the DC National Guard, responded by reiterating the response he had gotten from Piatt (and the brother of the guy who had incited many of the insurrectionists) implicitly correcting Salesses about chain of command. The Commander in Chief, of course, is in that chain of command.

Yes, Senator. So the chain of command is the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, [points to self] William Walker Commanding General District of Columbia National Guard.

After General Walker described more of the restrictions placed on him ahead of time, including the preapproval before moving a traffic control point from one block to another (which restriction, Walker said, he had never experienced in 19 years) and the issuance of riot gear, Salesses made more excuses (repeating his silence about the role of the President’s role in the chain of command). Remarkably, he described how Ryan McCarthy dithered from 3:04 until 4:10 because shots had been fired at the Capitol.

Salesses: Sir, Secretary Miller wanted to make the decisions on how the National Guard was going to be employed on that day. As you recall, Senator, the spring events, there was a number of things that happened during those events, that Secretary Miller as the Acting Secretary –

Rob Portman: Clearly he wanted to. The question is why? And how unusual. Don’t you think that’s unusual based on your experience at DOD?

Salesses: Senator, there was a lot of things that happened in the spring that the Department was criticized for — Sir, if I could. Civil Disturbance Operations? That authority rests with the Secretary of Defense. So if somebody’s gonna make a decision about employing military members against US citizens in a Civil Disturbance Operation —

Salesses: At 3:04, Secretary Miller made the decision to mobilize the entire National Guard. That meant that he was calling in all the National Guard members that were assigned to the DC National Guard. At 3:40–at 3:04 that decision was made. Between that period of time — between 3:04 and 4:10, basically, Secretary McCarthy had asked for — he wanted to understand, because of the dynamics on the Capitol lawn, with the explosives, obviously shots had been fired, he wanted to understand the employment of how the National Guard was going to be sent to the Capitol: what their missions were going to be, were they going to be clearing buildings, be doing perimeter security, how would they be equipped, he wanted to understand how they were going to be armed because, obviously, shots had been fired. He was asking a lot of questions to understand exactly how they were going to be employed here at the Capitol, and how many National Guard members needed to be deployed to the Capitol.

When asked whether restrictions placed on Walker hampered his defense, yes or no, Salesses again invoked the chain of command, again leaving out the Command-in-Chief.

Senator, General Walker, in fairness to him, can’t respond to a civil defense — a Civil Disturbance Operation without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.

Finally, Salesses explained a further 36-minute delay, from 4:32 until 5:08, when Walker was given approval to move, this way:

Salesses: In fairness to General Walker too, that’s when the Secretary of Defense made the decision, at 4:32. As General Walker has pointed out, cause I’ve seen all the timelines, he was not told that til 5:08.

Roy Blunt: How is that possible, Mr. Salazar [sic], do you think that the decision, in the moment we were in, was made at 4:32 and the person that had to be told wasn’t told for more than a half an hour after the decision.

Salesses: Senator, I think that’s an issue.

It’s not just that the people who were actually involved didn’t show up to explain all this to Congress. It’s not just that there were big gaps in the timeline, or gaps explained by dithering even after DOD learned about explosives and shots fired.

It’s that the guy sent to provide improbable answers seems to have removed the Commander-in-Chief, who was watching all this unfold on TV and now wants credit for proactively telling DOD they would need at least 10,000 people, from the chain of command he used to justify the delay.

That’s all the more striking given that — as Dana Milbank noted — the delay until Miller’s authorization (to say nothing of the 36-minute delay in informing Walker) also meant that DOD did not respond until after Trump had instructed his insurrection to go home.

Curiously, the Pentagon claims Miller’s authorization came at 4:32 — 15 minutes after Trump told his “very special” insurrectionists to “go home in peace.” Was Miller waiting for Trump’s blessing before defending the Capitol?

DOD’s selected witness yesterday said that General Walker couldn’t send the Guard to help protect the Capitol because of the chain of command. But the Commander-in-Chief seems to be AWOL from that chain of command.

Update: On Twitter AP observed that there is a discrepancy between Miller’s 10,000 person claim and Trump’s: Trump says it happened days before January 6, which would place it before Miller’s letter imposing new restrictions on the Guard.