Fox News and some Republicans have been saying that Trump ordered National Guard troops to the Capitol, but the 1/6 Committee has released testimony saying that Trump never gave a National Guard order.
The story from Mark Meadows that Sean Hannity and others have often repeated on Fox News is that Trump ordered 10,000 National Guard troops to be ready to go to the Capitol, but Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rejected the troops.
Trump made the same claim numerous times in 2021.
No matter how often the lie has been debunked, it still continued to be pushed on Fox News and other conservative media.
On Tuesday, the 1/6 Committee released testimony from Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller stating that there no such order or plan for National Guard troops at the Capitol:
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
Miller said, “There was no direct, there was no order from the President. We obviously 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.”
Miller’s testimony brings up an interesting question. If the Department of Defense was planning, why didn’t anyone in Trump’s White House pass that message along so they could be deployed?
The Defense Department was waiting for a call from Trump that never came.
The are many Big Lies surrounding Trump and 1/6, but one of the biggest has been that Trump tried to act but was stopped by Nancy Pelosi.
That lie has been put to rest six feet under by the 1/6 Committee.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
