Former President Donald Trump never issued orders to ready 10,000 troops ready to be deployed to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller told congressional investigators.
This assertion, revealed by the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, clashes with claims made by Trump and his allies, as they argue this was a step the former president did take to protect lawmakers on the day the Capitol riot disrupted lawmakers as they met to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
“I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature. I was surprised by seeing that publicly,” Miller told the Jan. 6 committee in video testimony. “Obviously, we had plans for activating more folks, but that was not anything more than contingency planning. There was no official message traffic or anything of that nature. … That was not part of my plan or the Department of Defense’s plan.”
187 MINUTES: SIX KEY MOMENTS FROM HOUSE JAN. 6 HEARING ON TRUMP’S TIMELINE
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News one month after the Capitol attack that Trump had requested an increased presence of National Guard troops at the Capitol to protect his supporters on Jan. 6. Meadows then said that request was denied by members of the Democratic-led Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
To remove any doubt: Not only did Donald Trump fail to contact his Secretary of Defense on January 6th (as shown in our hearing), Trump also failed to give any order prior to January 6 to deploy the military to protect the Capitol.
Here is Secretary Miller’s testimony— pic.twitter.com/joucnUHvBB
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) July 26, 2022
Trump echoed those claims in a statement in June, arguing he had “suggested & offered” up to 20,000 National Guard troops to be deployed to the Capitol because he thought “the crowd was going to be very large.”
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The Jan. 6 committee shared video of Miller’s deposition after it wrapped up its summer slate of summer hearings. Another tranche of hearings is expected in September. “To remove any doubt: Not only did Donald Trump fail to contact his Secretary of Defense on January 6th (as shown in our hearing), Trump also failed to give any order prior to January 6 to deploy the military to protect the Capitol,” the panel said in its tweet.
The final summer hearing last week revealed testimony from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying he did not hear from the former president at all while the riot was occurring. Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, also testified that he never heard Trump ask for the National Guard or a law enforcement response.
