Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.
Congress is officially recessed for the whole of October, and will not return to Washington until mid-November. Before leaving last week, they hurriedly passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the government at existing levels until December 20 (not included was the SAVE Act, requiring proof of citizenship before voting). In the House, the bill passed by a vote of 341 to 82, and in the Senate by a vote of 78 to 18.
The status quo may be chugging along intractably when it comes to government funding, but the worm appears to be turning with regard to what really happened on January 6, 2021. Transcripts recently released by the House Administration Committee indicate that Pentagon officials ignored President Trump’s requests for a National Guard presence at the Capitol on January 6th.
Specifically, Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that Trump told him on January 3rd to “make sure you have sufficient National Guard or soldiers to make sure it’s a safe event.” Later, Trump told Milley they would need “10,000 troops” at the Capitol to keep it safe. Milley, however, testified that he refused to comply out of concern Trump would “invoke the Insurrection Act to politicize the military in an anti-democratic manner,” referencing a Washington Post op-ed from 10 former secretaries of defense warning that such a thing might occur.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy then sent a memo to the commander of the D.C. National Guard, prohibiting them from deploying to the Capitol without an explicit order from him. The day of the riot multiple officials, including U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, testified that McCarthy dismissed their requests for assistance over the “optics” of having the National Guard at the Capitol – or they couldn’t reach him at all. The commander of the DC National Guard testified that he attempted to call McCarthy three times between 2:30p and 5:00p, but that the phone went straight to voicemail.
A separate congressional hearing in the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government looked into a question that has persisted about the riot: how many federal assets were present in and around the Capitol on January 6th, and what role did they play?
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whose office is currently reviewing the DOJ’s actions on January 6th, testified at the hearing – and tacitly conceded the presence of FBI informants at the Capitol.
Asked by Rep. Thomas Massie how many confidential human sources were present, Horowitz did not deny their presence but simply noted that “our report will include information in that regard.” When asked how many confidential human sources were reimbursed for travel, he also didn’t deny that there were any – rather, that he “didn’t recall the number.” He also did not deny that FBI informants went into the Capitol.
Remarkably, Horowitz also confirmed that his report – which has been ongoing since 2021 – will likely not be released before the election. He also could not confirm that it will be released before the inauguration, which is astonishing considering that the report is supposed to reveal facts about the last inauguration that, ostensibly, will prevent another occurrence at or around the next inauguration.
The hearing’s star witness was undoubtedly former FBI Staff Operations Specialist Marcus Allen, a former Employee of the Year who had his security clearance revoked and was later suspended without pay for over two years after he was deemed an “insider threat.”
His crime was expressing concerns that FBI Director Christopher Wray was not entirely honest with the public when he testified that FBI confidential human sources played no role in instigating the riot. His statement to Rep. Dan Bishop, which he called “his last act of service as a public servant,” is worth watching.
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