DC Mayor Caused Delayed Response Jan-6
Almost as soon as the words came off my pen and out of my mouth in criticism of the secrecy of the January 6 Select Committee, a memorandum from one of the witnesses was leaked to/shared with Politico and it went public. The document is a 36-page, single-spaced, rambling memo written by Col. Matthews of the U.S. Army (dated December 1, 2021). It was written to attack the veracity of written submissions made to a June Congressional Committee by Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt.Gen. Walter Piatt.
I got my hands on the memo the evening of December 6. It took me several hours, a highlighter, and four colored pens to get through it. Its ramble. Its lack of organization. Its inclusion of multiple persons previously unknown to be associated with January 6. Essentially, buried within it were nuggets not otherwise provided by others, including texts of military and civilian e-mails and military documents. Those nuggets connected dots sitting, waiting in my research command center (a/k/a “The Olivetti Room”).
By 5 pm, December 7, I was on the air with Bill Frady of “Lock-and-Load Radio” to spell out that the Mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, was responsible for the delayed response of the DC National Guard on the afternoon of January 6.
Since January 6, there have been three essential questions about the events:
(1.) What was the intel going into the day of? This answer is spelled out in my book.
(2.) What forces converged going into the day of? I work from the hypothesis that it was a confluence of several factors we can define and establish, such as a botched FBI operation and known disrupters with permits issued as late as January 4. It remains to be learned whether there were any individuals in high places who made advance decisions to set several of the variables in motion. And it should be weighed in that all officials concerned vastly underestimated the mood of a segment of the population as of the day of January 6. Start with my book and this website.
(3.) What allowed the situation to get so out of hand on January 6? We now know the answer to question #3 is as simple as one person: Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The new information from Col. Matthews in his memo syncs with the prior testimony of Washington, D.C. National Guard Maj. Gen. William Walker and U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. These two men testified in early March at the first round of Congressional hearings. With my near 30 years of experience as a litigation attorney, I carefully analyzed their testimony, along with the other witnesses in that round. I credited them. I discredited, in full, the testimony of Mr. Robert Salesses, who testified on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. And I partially discredited the testimony of J. Brett Blanton, the Architect of the Capitol, as well as Paul Irving, then Sergeant at Arms for the U.S. House of Representatives and Michael Stenger, then Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the U.S. Senate.
Here is how the situation unfolded, taking the new information into account.
On Monday, January 4 at 9:12 pm, the standing approval authority to deploy a “Quick Reaction Force” to civil unrest in Washington, D.C. was removed from Maj.Gen. Walker and was pushed up the Chain of Command to the Secretary of Defense, Col. Christopher Miller. The date, the time, the original, and the revised language was all released in Col. Matthews’ new memo.
In the wee hours of Tuesday, January 5, Col. Matthews described that both he and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy voiced concern about the change, which would require the Secretary of Defense to personally approve the deployment of DC National Guard. (There is no indication in the memo how the communication progressed from there.)
On Tuesday, January 5, as we knew, in the afternoon, Mayor Bowser issued her 1-page letter to Secretary of the Army McCarthy, to U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and to U.S. Secretary of Defense Miller, stating:
“To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD, if such plans are underway.”
As we knew, on the day of January 6, from the perspective of USCP Chief Sund, all was well until approximately 12:50 pm when he (a.) learned of the pipe bombs discovered outside the Republican National Party Headquarters and the Democratic National Headquarters; and, (b.) a group of people arrived at the perimeter of the Capitol and immediately began violently fighting with officers and tearing apart the steel crowd control barriers.
As we knew, at approximately 1:49 pm, Sund – who knows Walker personally – called Maj.Gen. Walker to inform him the Capitol was breached at to request assistance. In doing so, Sund violated the Congressional Chain of Command that otherwise required him to seek a vote that included the Architect of the Capitol and the Sergeants at Arms in the event he wanted to call in the National Guard.
What we now learn from Col. Matthews’ memo is that Washington, D.C. Mayor Bowser had already requested additional forces at 1:34 pm. Bowser requested additional forces roughly fifteen minutes ahead of Sund requesting DC National Guard.
What we knew was that Maj.Gen. Walker adhered to his Chain of Command. He readied the Quick Reaction Force plus additional Guardsmen. He repositioned them from Joint Base Andrews to the DC Armory [2001 East Capitol St., SE]. He even loaded them into buses. But, Maj.Gen. Walker waited for approval. He did not violate the very recently revised revocation of his authority to deploy DC National Guard.
According to Col. Matthews’ memo, the pre-existing metric used to determine a deployment consisted of six scenarios, any one of which would support a deployment decision, as follows:
1. flash crowd that is not manageable by assembled law enforcement;
2. civil unrest no manageable by assembled law enforcement civil disturbance units;
3. large-scale vandalism and looting (i.e., City Center area);
4. vandalism or damage to national monuments or museums;
5. attempts to breach Federal or District government buildings; or
6. acts of arson.
Under one or more of these scenarios, Maj.Gen. Walker would have been justified to deploy DC National Guard on January 6 as early as the telephone call he received from USCP Chief Sund, if not the earlier call from WDC Mayor Bowser. (Note that the memo of Col. Matthews does not specify who the Mayor contacted to request additional forces.)
The Mayor then made the situation worse.
The new deployment language read:
“I will require a concept of operation prior to authorizing employment of the [Quick Reaction Force].” The “I” was the Secretary of Defense.
What we also now know is that at 3:48 pm on January 6, Secretary of the Army McCarthy was transported to the headquarters of the DC Metropolitan Police Department [300 Indiana Ave., NW] (arrival 4:05 pm). There, he met with DC Mayor Bowser and MPD Chief Contee. There, a plan was developed for DC National Guard to respond to events at the Capitol, the route to travel, the support, and the leadership on the ground and in contact with the Chain of Command.
From that meeting, the trio transitioned at 4:30 pm into a live press conference, including McCarthy’s remark that he was required to “go through the Secretary of Defense” to get the necessary approvals.
It was after the press conference, at 5:08 pm that Maj.Gen. Walker was given authorization to proceed with his mission to provide support to law enforcement already on the ground at the Capitol and to quell the civil unrest. By approximately 6:00 pm, it was widely reported that events at the Capitol were quieting down, and the building and grounds were soon cleared, allowing a comprehensive sweep. The Capitol was declared ready for the continuation of the Electoral College ballot count at approximately 8:00 pm.
What does it all mean?
Using either the Mayor’s call for help at 1:34 pm or USCP Chief Sund’s call for back-up at 1:49 pm, the shooting death of an unarmed woman named Ashli Babbitt, inside the Capitol, by USCP Officer Michael Byrd at 12:46 pm might have been averted. At the least.
The DC National Guard did not go in with firearms or ammunition. By all accounts, “it was never contemplated.”
The Mayor did not want “to cause confusion among residents and visitors” by the presence of any additional law enforcement in Washington, D.C., according to her 1-page letter of January 5.
And, as for the explanation as to why there were reports that USCP Sund was looking shocked as events unfolded? Imagine, if you will, that USCP Chief Sund saw the intel coming in, including, but not limited to the January 3 memorandum of USCP new-hire Jack Donohue that things could get violent and Congress could be the target, and Sund called that day over to his colleague and friend, Maj.Gen. Walker, to ask, directly and without pomp and circumstance, if I call you for help, will you come? On the Sunday, Walker truthfully answers his friend, yes. These two men had each other’s backs. But then Walker’s authority was revoked, and I can well imagine, given the timing of everything, Walker didn’t go over that change of authority to require the Secretary of Defense to give the approval, until he relayed that information to Sund during the call at 1:49 pm on January 6. It would have left Sund sitting in the command booth, watching things unfolding in real time, with every tick of the clock resulting in further injury, in death, and in damage to the Capitol. Admittedly, according to USCP Chief Sund and MPD Chief Contee, this was not a scenario for which they had drilled.
The four-hour delay was the result of WDC Mayor Bowser – a civilian – inserting herself into the Chain of Command, because she didn’t want residents or visitors to get “confused” if they saw the DC National Guard respond to emergency events within the city. Instead, Mayor Bowser had National Guard members assigned to traffic duty around the city.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser hasn’t been called as a witness by Congress for any of multiple panels of hearings since January 6. She did testify to Congress on March 22, 2021 to pursue DC statehood.
