(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Whistleblowers from the DC National Guard testified to Congress on Wednesday about Pentagon officials prevented them from promptly responding to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising.
The four whistleblowers spent much of their testimony discussing the three-hour 19-minute delay from the time they were requested to deploy to the Capitol to when they arrived. Their testimony suggests that the top Pentagon officials failed in executing President Donald Trump’s authorization to have at least 10,000 National Guards members ready to assist in quelling violence on Jan. 6.
Then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy has claimed that he ordered the DC National Guard’s commanding general, Maj. Gen. William Walker, to deploy to the Capitol during a 2:31 p.m. conference call—which was after a riot began, but before the Capitol building was breached. However, National Guard whistleblower and Secret Service agent Timothy Nick said Wednesday that McCarthy lied about that call.
“McCarthy claims he was on the 2:31 PM call and spoke on that call. This is false … He was enroute to the Washington D.C. Regional Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to support that agency’s concept of operations on January 6th. He went on to claim that he called and spoke to Major General Walker at least twice, ordering the deployment of the DC Guard. This is also false,” Nick said.
The whistleblower also said that Army Lieutenant General Charles Flynn lied in his previous assertions that he was not on the same 2:31 p.m. call. Not only was Flynn on that call; he was discouraging the National Guard from deploying to the Capitol, according to the whistelblower, Nick.
“Lieutenant General Flynn was also on the call and even participated in discussions … Lieutenant General Flynn, while on the call, discussed how they ‘did not like the optics’—that is a direct quote—of sending Guardsmen to the Capitol,” Nick said. “They stated it would be in their best military advice to recommend to the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, to deny the request from Command General William Walker to deploy the DC National Guard.”
The DC National Guard wasn’t given the order to go to the Captiol until 5:09 p.m. on Jan. 6, Nick added.
“We arrived too late. One American lay dead with other sisters and brothers injured, including federal and local law enforcement officers. We were ready and standing by. I know if we were able to deploy immediately when General Walker made the request, the National Guard could have helped end the civil disturbance and restored public order quickly,” he said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
