In the wake of the violent insurrection by supporters of US President Donald Trump who stormed and ransacked the US Capitol building on Wednesday, the Pentagon has moved thousands of troops into the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. They will reportedly stay through the end of the month to ensure a peaceful transition of power.
On Thursday, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy told reporters that by the end of the weekend, 6,200 National Guard troops will have been relocated to DC and parts of Maryland and Virginia around the capital city and will be staying for “no less than the next 30 days.”
McCarthy noted that in addition to the entire DC National Guard, soldiers from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York would be present.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed the troops would remain on the ground “through the inauguration” of US President-elect Joe Biden on January 20. She also extended the state of emergency declared on Wednesday for another 15 days, until January 21.
By Friday, more than 850 troops had been stationed around the US Capitol building, around which they helped construct a 7-foot-high non-scalable fence similar to that built around the White House and Lafayette Park last June, when Black Lives Matter protests rocked the city.
The January National Guard deployment is also more troops than were brought into the city last year, which according to CNN was roughly 5,000 guardsmen. However, Trump also personally ordered the deployment of hundreds of federal police officers to the city in addition to the regular DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, and the US Army stationed 1,600 active duty troops near Washington in addition to the guardsmen. Trump reportedly wanted as many as 10,000 US troops on the streets of the nation’s capital last June, but was advised against it by senior military and law officials.
On Thursday, the chief of US Capitol Police, Steven Sund, tendered his resignation after his force failed to prevent hundreds of Trump supporters from storming the national legislature the day prior. While the number of insurrectionists far exceeded the number of officers, the Associated Press reported that Sund had refused at least three offers from the Pentagon to buttress his defense of the Capitol with National Guardsmen in the days leading up to the riot.
In late December, Bowser requested a small number of DC guardsmen be activated, but the roughly 340 troops present in DC on Wednesday were assigned to support roles with the MPD and had no jurisdiction to enter the Capitol grounds, according to Military Times. Bowser’s requests for additional guardsmen during the height of the assault on the Capitol were reportedly delayed by the federal approval process for more than an hour.
After the failure of his supporters to halt the certification of election results by Congress that he had deemed fraudulent, Trump denounced the insurrection on Thursday and finally conceded his loss in the November 2020 vote, pledging himself to a peaceful transfer of power to “a new administration” on January 20.
The riot is widely seen as having been fanned by Trump’s explosive rhetoric, including encouraging his supporters to “stop the steal” by Democrats and that they “have to show strength.” However, the events of Wednesday only left him further isolated, as US Vice President Mike Pence, central Pentagon leaders and leading lawmakers from his own party pledged to back a peaceful transition of power, and several administration officials resigned in disgust.
“Taxpayers will be on the hook for repairs to the Capitol,” Stephen Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told Reuters, noting the building and grounds are not insured. The cost of the damage, which includes broken windows and doors, broken furniture, stolen items, and even feces smeared on the walls, is not yet known.
