WASHINGTON: Defense Department leaders placed unusual restrictions on the National Guard for the day of the Capitol riot and delayed sending help for hours despite an urgent plea from police for reinforcement, according to testimony Wednesday that added to the finger-pointing about the government response.
Maj. Gen. William Walker, commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, told senators that the then-chief of the Capitol Police requested military support in a “voice cracking with emotion” in a 1:49 p.m. call as rioters began pushing toward the Capitol. Walker said he immediately relayed the request to the Army but did not learn until after 5 p.m. that the Defense Department had approved it. Guard troops who had been waiting on buses were then rushed to the Capitol, arriving in 18 minutes, Walker said.
The hourslong delay cost the National Guard precious minutes in the early hours of the Jan. 6 rioting, with Walker saying he could have gotten personnel into the building within 20 minutes of getting approval. As it stood, the support did not happen until the evening. The delay also stood in contrast to the swift authorization for National Guard support that Walker said was granted in response to the civil unrest that roiled Washington last June as an outgrowth of racial justice protests.
A senior Pentagon official who testified, Robert Salesses, said it took time for the Army to sort out what the National Guard was being asked to do and what its support might look like, especially since the Capitol Police days earlier had not asked for any help. Mindful of criticism that the response to the demonstrations last spring was heavy-handed, military officials were also concerned about the optics of a substantial National Guard presence at the Capitol, and that such visuals could inflame the rioters, Walker said.
“The Army senior leadership” expressed “that it would not be their best military advice to have uniformed Guardsmen on the Capitol,” Walker said.
The Senate hearing is the latest about the missed intelligence and botched efforts to quickly gather National Guard troops as a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters laid siege to the Capitol. Taken together, the hearings have spelled out the challenge law enforcement officials face in sorting through an ocean of unverified tips but also highlighted how police inadequately prepared for the Trump loyalists; that FBI warnings about the threat of violence did not reach top police officials; and that requests for aid were not promptly answered.
“We in the FBI want to bat 1,000, and we want to not have this ever happen again,” said Jill Sanborn, the bureau’s top counterterrorism official and one of the witnesses. “So we’re asking ourselves exactly the questions that you’re asking: Is there a place we could have collected more (intelligence)? Is there something we could have done?”
Meanwhile, the Capitol Police disclosed the existence of intelligence of a “possible plot” by a militia group to breach the Capitol on Thursday. The revelation, coming as the acting police chief was testifying before a House subcommittee, differed from an earlier advisory from the House sergeant-at-arms that said police had no indication that any such violence was planned.
Much of the focus at Wednesday’s Senate hearing was on communications between the National Guard and the Defense Department. Walker described an “unusual” directive that required Pentagon approval before deploying a specialized 40-member “quick reaction force” and before relocating personnel from one traffic intersection to another.
As chaos escalated on Jan. 6, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund asked him for National Guard help in a frantic call and then again on a call with Army officials, who said they did not “think that it looked good” to have a military presence.
“The response to the request took too long, so I think there needs to be a study done to make sure that never happens again,” Walker said. “It shouldn’t take three hours to get a yes or no answer.”
That account was consistent with the recollection of Robert Contee, the acting chief of police for the Metropolitan Police Department, who told lawmakers last week that he was “stunned” by the delayed response. Contee said Sund pleaded with Army officials to deploy National Guard troops as the rioting escalated.
Walker’s testimony, however, conflicts a bit with timelines that were put out and discussed by senior military and defense leaders in the weeks after the riot.
According to the Defense Department, Walker was called at 3 p.m. by Army officials, and was told to prepare Guard troops to deploy. That call was designed to give the Guard notice of the impending deployment so they would have time to move troops from their traffic posts to the armory where they would get new orders, protective equipment and weapons.
The Pentagon said acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller gave verbal authorization for the Guard troops to deploy at about 4:30 p.m., and that at 5:02 p.m., 154 members of the D.C. Guard left the armory, heading to the Capitol.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said during a break in the hearing that senators “certainly will have questions” for Miller and for former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.
“Whether that’s going to require testimony or not, I don’t know, but it’s definitely going to require an opportunity to ask them questions about their view, from their perspective, of why this decision-making process went so horribly wrong,” Blunt said.
Salesses, the senior Pentagon official, stressed that military officials were concerned about responding forcefully to civil disturbance in light of what happened last spring, “where we had helicopters flying above US citizens, we had spy planes flying over folks who were protesting.”
The Capitol Police had not previously requested National Guard help, and in letters to Walker, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser laid out the city’s request for help and made it clear there would be restrictions on the Guard members.
At last week’s hearing, officials in charge of Capitol security blamed one another as well as federal law enforcement for their own lack of preparation as hundreds of rioters descended on the building, easily breached the security perimeter and eventually broke into the Capitol. Five people died as a result of the rioting.
Thousands of National Guard troops are still patrolling the fenced-in Capitol, and multiple committees across Congress are investigating Jan. 6. The probes are largely focused on security missteps and the origins of the extremism that led hundreds of Trump supporters to break through the doors and windows of the Capitol, hunt for lawmakers and temporarily stop the counting of electoral votes.
Lawmakers have grilled law enforcement officials about missed intelligence ahead of the attack, including a report from an FBI field office in Virginia that warned of online posts foreshadowing a “war” in Washington. Sund has said he was unaware of the report at the time, even though the FBI had forwarded it to the department.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the report was disseminated through the FBI’s joint terrorism task force, discussed at a command post and posted on an Internet portal available to law enforcement agencies.
Though the information was raw and unverified, Wray said, it was specific and concerning enough that “the smartest thing to do, the most prudent thing to do, was just push it to the people who needed to get it.”
Pentagon hesitated on sending Guard to US Capitol riot, general tells Senate probe
https://arab.news/cx9ht
Pentagon hesitated on sending Guard to US Capitol riot, general tells Senate probe
- The hourslong delay cost the National Guard precious minutes in the early hours of the Jan. 6 rioting by Trump supporters
- Security boosted again amid warnings of a “possible plot” by a militia group to breach the Capitol on March 4
New Trump human resources czar distances himself from Elon Musk
- Kupor said he had told Trump and other people in the White House that “my job is to do the agenda that the president lays out to the best I can.”
WASHINGTON: The new chief of the agency spearheading efforts to slash the federal workforce said on Monday he had no personal ties to tech billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk, pledging to faithfully execute President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“I have zero personal relationship with Elon Musk. I have talked to Elon Musk once on the phone in my life,” Scott Kupor, who was sworn in to lead the Office of Personnel Management earlier this month, told reporters.
The comments underscored lingering questions about the loyalties of Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs among Trump administration officials following a public spat between Trump and Musk that led to a deep rift between the two former allies.
Kupor said he had told Trump and other people in the White House that “my job is to do the agenda that the president lays out to the best I can.”
“But I’m not going to do it consistent with someone else’s objectives that are inconsistent with what the president wants to do,” he added.
Musk, who spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump win November’s presidential election, led the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash the budget and cut the federal workforce until his departure in late May to refocus on his tech empire, including electric vehicle maker Tesla .
While Trump hailed Musk’s tenure upon his departure, the president quickly pulled the nomination of Musk ally and tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Reuters previously reported that Musk was disappointed by Isaacman’s removal.
The president also threatened to cancel billions of dollars worth of contracts between the federal government and Musk’s companies after Musk denounced Trump’s tax-cut and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
Prior to taking the helm at OPM, Kupor was a partner at Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in Musk’s AI startup Xai as well as SpaceX.
White House restricts WSJ access to Trump over Epstein story
- The punishment of the Wall Street Journal marks at least the second time the Trump administration has moved to exclude a major news outlet from the press pool over its reporting
WASHINGTON: The White House on Monday barred The Wall Street Journal from traveling with US President Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Scotland, after the newspaper reported that he wrote a bawdy birthday message to his former friend, alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The move comes after Trump on Friday sued the WSJ and its media magnate owner Rupert Murdoch for at least $10 billion over the allegation in the article, which Trump denies.
The Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case has threatened to split the Republican’s far-right Make America Great Again (MAGA) base, with some of his supporters calling for a full release of the so-called “Epstein Files.”
The punishment of the Wall Street Journal marks at least the second time the Trump administration has moved to exclude a major news outlet from the press pool over its reporting, having barred Associated Press journalists from multiple key events since February.
“As the appeals court confirmed, The Wall Street Journal or any other news outlet are not guaranteed special access to cover President Trump in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in his private workspaces,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Due to The Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the thirteen outlets on board (Air Force One).”
Trump departs this weekend for Scotland, where he owns two golf resorts and will meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice, under Trump-appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi, said there was no evidence suggesting disgraced financier Epstein had kept a “client list” or was blackmailing powerful figures before his death in 2019.
In its story on Thursday, the WSJ reported that Trump had written a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein in 2003, illustrated with a naked woman and alluding to a shared “secret.”
Epstein, a longtime friend of Trump and multiple other high-profile men, was found hanging dead in a New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited dozens of underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida.
The case sparked conspiracy theories, especially among Trump’s far-right voters, about an alleged international cabal of wealthy pedophiles.
Epstein’s death — declared a suicide — before he could face trial supercharged that narrative.
Since returning to power in January, Trump has moved to increase control over the press covering the White House.
In February, the Oval Office stripped the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) of its nearly century-old authority to oversee which outlets have access to certain restricted presidential events, with Trump saying that he was now “calling the shots” on media access.
In a statement, the WHCA president urged the White House to “restore” the Journal to the pool.
“This attempt by the White House to punish a media outlet whose coverage it does not like is deeply troubling, and it defies the First Amendment,” said WHCA President Weijia Jiang.
“Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media.”
Zelensky names new ambassadors during Ukraine political shakeup
- Zelensky launched a major government reshuffle last week, promoting Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, who had served as economy minister and is well known in Washington, to head the cabinet as prime minister
MOSCOW: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed over a dozen new ambassadors on Monday, during a big shakeup that has seen him replace top cabinet officials and envoys to shore up relations with Washington and isolate Russia internationally.
The new envoys named on Monday include ambassadors to NATO members Belgium, Canada, Estonia and Spain, as well as major donor Japan and regional heavyweights South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
Zelensky launched a major government reshuffle last week, promoting Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, who had served as economy minister and is well known in Washington, to head the cabinet as prime minister.
Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna is set to become Ukraine’s new envoy to the United States, as Ukraine seeks to mend ties with the Trump administration.
In remarks to the diplomatic corps released by his office, Zelensky said envoys needed to support “everything that causes Russia pain for its war.”
“While the content of our relationship with America has transformed following the change in administration, the goal remains unchanged: Ukraine must withstand Russia’s strikes,” Zelensky said.
A recap of the trial over the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protesters
- US lawyer William Kanellis said that out of about 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters investigated by the federal government, only 18 were arrested
BOSTON: The Trump administration’s campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations violates their First Amendment rights, lawyers for an association representing university professors argued in federal court.
The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Donald Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. US District Judge William Young heard closing arguments Monday in Boston.
He did not say or indicate when or how he would rule. But he had some sharp words when talking about Trump.
“The president is a master of speech and he certainly brilliantly uses his right to free speech,” Young told federal lawyers. But whether Trump “recognizes whether other people have any right to free speech is questionable,” he added.
Plaintiffs are asking Young to rule that the policy violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
No ideological deportation policy
Over the course of the trial, plaintiffs argued that the crackdown has silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters.
“The goal is to chill speech. The goal is to silence students and scholars who wish to express pro-Palestinian views,” said Alexandra Conlan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
She went on to say that this chilling effect caused by “intimidating and scaring students and scholars” is “exactly what the First Amendment was meant to prevent.”
But federal lawyers and a top State Department official testifying for the government insisted there was no ideological deportation policy as the plaintiffs contend.
John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in Bureau of Consular Affairs, testified that visa revocations were based on longstanding immigration law. Armstrong acknowledged he played a role in the visa revocation of several high-profile activists, including Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, and was shown memos endorsing their removal.
Armstrong also insisted that visa revocations were not based on protected speech and rejected accusations that there was a policy of targeting someone for their ideology.
“It’s silly to suggest there is a policy,” he said.
Were student protesters targeted?
US lawyer William Kanellis said that out of about 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters investigated by the federal government, only 18 were arrested. He said not only is targeting such protesters not a policy of the US government, he said, it’s “not even a statistical anomaly.”
Out of the 5,000 names reviewed, investigators wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated US law, Peter Hatch of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Unit testified. Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.
Among the report subjects was Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.
Another was the Tufts University student Ozturk, who was released in May from six weeks in detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her school’s response to the war in Gaza.
Hatch said most leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather by existing procedures in place at least since he took the job in 2019.
Patrick Cunningham, an assistant special Agent in charge with Homeland Security investigations in Boston and who was involved in Ozturk’s arrest, said he was only told the Tuft University student was being arrested because her visa was revoked.
But he also acknowledged being provided a memo from the State Department about Ozturk as well as a copy of an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza. He also admitted that he has focused more on immigration cases since Trump’s inauguration, compared to the drugs smuggling and money laundering cases he handled in the past.
Professors spoke of scaling back activism
During the trial, several green card-holding professors described scaling back activism, public criticism and international travel following Khalil’s and Ozturk’s arrests.
Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that “stamps from those two countries would raise red flags” upon her return. She also declined to participate in anti-Trump protests and abandoned plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas.
“I felt it was too risky,” Al-Ali said.
Kanellis, a US government attorney, said “feelings” and “anxiety” about possible deportation do not equate to imminent harm from a legal standpoint, which he argued plaintiffs failed to establish in their arguments.
US withdrawing 700 Marines from Los Angeles: Pentagon
WASHINGTON: The 700 US Marines in Los Angeles are being withdrawn, ending a contentious deployment of the troops in the city, the Pentagon announced on Monday.
President Donald Trump ordered thousands of National Guard and hundreds of Marines into Los Angeles last month in response to protests over federal immigration sweeps — a move opposed by city leaders and California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has directed the redeployment of the 700 Marines whose presence sent a clear message: lawlessness will not be tolerated,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
“Their rapid response, unwavering discipline, and unmistakable presence were instrumental in restoring order and upholding the rule of law,” he added.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also announced the withdrawal of the Marines in a post on X, saying it was “another win” for the city and that the presence of the troops was “an unnecessary deployment.”
The removal of the Marines comes after the Pentagon said last week that Hegseth had ordered the withdrawal of 2,000 National Guard personnel from Los Angeles, roughly halving the deployment of those troops in the city.
As a so-called “sanctuary city” with hundreds of thousands of undocumented people, Los Angeles has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration since the Republican returned to office in January.
After immigration enforcement raids spurred unrest and protests last month, Trump — who has repeatedly exaggerated the scale of the unrest — dispatched the National Guard and Marines to quell the disruption.
It was the first time since 1965 that a US president deployed the National Guard against the wishes of a state governor.
