Armed National Guard members will not be on standby as Washington D.C. prepares for the “Justice for J6” rally today, said a report in the Washington Post.
Around 700 people are expected to attend the rally, which is scheduled to begin at noon. Its main goal is to push for charges to be dropped against nonviolent protesters at the Jan. 6 riot and it was organized by a former Trump campaigner.
According to the Washington Post, U.S. Capitol Police Chief J.
Thomas Manger withdrew a formal request for 100 armed National Guard members to be on standby for a rally. The outlet said the request was withdrawn “at the urging of a top Senate security official who said he had not followed protocol.”
Days later, the chief asked for National Guard members armed only with batons after conferring with the official, Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson and the Pentagon. By Friday morning, the Defense Department approved the request for support.
National Guard members are to be stationed at the D.C. Armory and deployed only if necessary.
The fact that part of the request was changed was “incidental,” Gibson wrote in an email to The Washington Post. She said she was not opposed to armed National Guardsmen on standby.
“I asked the USCP to drop a request that had not been coordinated. That uncoordinated request happened to be for armed Guard,” she wrote, saying they then conferred with Pentagon officials. “At the end of those planning session, we agreed jointly that this request was the best use of potential DoD assets within that specific context.”
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This change in plans infuriated some Capitol Police officials, said the Washington Post. Some believe it mirrors the actions that left the Capitol vulnerable to the riots earlier this year, where police and civilians perished. Manger, however, supported the final plan.
A few days before Jan. 6 then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund’s request to have the National Guard on standby was rejected. Since the National Guard killed four students at Kent State University during a 1970 antiwar rally, the Defense Department had had strict guidelines for deploying the guard to protests, explained the Washington Post.
After the Jan. 6 riot, the National Guard was eventually deployed to D.C., where members formed a human wall around the Capitol. Some remained there for months.
“The behind-the-scenes revisions over the requested National Guard deployment lay bare how, despite the clear failure to protect the building on Jan. 6, Congress hasn’t fixed the disjointed Capitol Police command structure that contributed to that failure,” said the Washington Post. Despite this challenge, the department has a robust plan to avoid the re-do of the earlier rally and riot.
A fence was put up around the Capitol ahead of the rally and local police forces offered a total of 1,600 officers to assist the Capitol Police.
For today’s rally, the Capitol Police Board the board must declare an emergency before seeking help from the Pentagon or asking for armed National Guard support. So far, the board has preemptively declared an emergency.
According to WTOP reporters, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza was mostly empty about a half hour before the rally was scheduled to begin.
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