Bring the January 6th Insurrectionists to Justice

Trump’s Pentagon Blocked Troops From Getting to the Capitol Riots For Hours, DC National Guard Commander Said
The head of the DC National Guard told Congress Wednesday he was “stunned” as senior military leaders refused desperate pleas to send in troops to quell the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.

Even after the Capitol had been breached, Pentagon officials in the Trump administration held off on sending in reinforcements for three hours and 19 minutes while citing a concern about “optics,” DC National Guard commanding general William Walker told the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

Walker said that former president Donald Trump’s acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller leveled “unusual” restrictions the day before the riots that required Walker to seek Miller’s permission to move troops or to allow members of a rapid response unit to arm themselves or put on helmets or body armor.

The DC National Guard had 340 troops either deployed or ready to deploy to help DC police handle traffic around the city that day. Walker said he could have had 155 National Guard troops at the Capitol within 20 minutes of getting the order.

Instead, those troops would spend hours waiting for permission to help Capitol Police, who had been hopelessly overwhelmed by rioters.

A member of the far-right nationalist Proud Boys was in communication with a person associated with the White House in the days just before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

Location, cellular and call record data revealed a call tying a Proud Boys member to the Trump White House, the official said. The FBI has not determined what they discussed, and the official would not reveal the names of either party.

The connection revealed by the communications data comes as the FBI intensifies its investigation of contacts among far-right extremists, Trump White House associates and conservative members of Congress in the days before the attack.

A US Capitol rioter who allegedly assaulted police with a fire extinguisher says President Biden wants to “vilify the patriots” who breached the building, according to a report that revealed his identity Friday.

Robert Scott Palmer, 53, was allegedly captured on camera spraying officers at close range then throwing the emptied canister at them while wearing an easy-to-spot American flag jacket on Jan. 6, the Huffington Post reported.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is signaling that she is poised to create a new committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, pushing closer to a partisan investigation of the attack after Senate Republicans blocked the creation of an independent probe.

A person familiar with the matter said after a meeting with Democrats that Pelosi had told her colleagues that she would create a select panel. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private remarks. But Pelosi later denied that, telling reporters, “No, I did not make that announcement.”

The new committee would come after the Senate voted earlier this month to block legislation to form a bipartisan, independent commission investigating the attack by former President Donald Trump’s supporters. Pelosi said afterward that the House would step up investigations of the riot, in which a violent mob overran police, broke into the building and hunted for lawmakers to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.