Just Security: Crisis of Command: The Pentagon, The President, and January 6
Close observers of the events of Jan. 6 have mainly posited two reasons for the delay in mobilizing the Guard. The first explanation is one of bureaucratic failures or managerial weaknesses in the military’s procedures that day. A second explanation is that the military was deliberately serving Trump’s effort to interfere with the election by withholding assistance.
We identify a third explanation: that senior military officials constrained the mobilization and deployment of the National Guard to avoid injecting federal troops that could have been re-missioned by the President to advance his attempt to hold onto power.
The National Guard took more than three hours to respond to the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. That delay has been the subject of multiple inquiries.
In a new post for Just Security, journalists Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix cobble together existing reports to posit an explosive new theory: military leaders were reluctant to deploy the Guard because they were concerned that then-President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act and use the troops to advance his plot to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.
“What was at stake was the prospect of an illegal order from the President and thwarting a potential scheme to undermine the peaceful transfer of power,” Goodman and Hendrix write. “Ultimately, the outcome of the Pentagon’s decisions may have been best for the nation, even if it extended the period of time during which Congress was in harm’s way.”
Read their full report here.
