Decision-making is under scrutiny, as city police and Capitol officials say the Pentagon was slow to respond, while the Pentagon and the Army say they never denied or delayed requests to the National Guard.
In official schedules released by the Department of Defense after the turmoil, Charles Flynn, the deputy chief of staff of the Army, was not listed as a participant in any of the calls that day about mobilizing the National Guard to respond to the turmoil.
“I entered the room after the call started and left before the call ended, as I believed that a decision was imminent from (then Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy) and needed to be in my office to help execute the decision,” Flynn said in a statement released to CNN. There was no clear answer as to how long Flynn was on the call or whether he contributed to the conversation.
The Washington Post reports that the Army “falsely denied for days that Lieutenant General Charles A. Flynn” was involved in major meetings. One of the officers on the call told CNN in the days after the Capitol insurrection that Flynn was not on the calls, but the military did not confirm his participation until Wednesday.
There is no indication that Charles Flynn would agree with his brother, who was a vocal advocate of challenging President Joe Biden’s victory on behalf of the former president.
“Those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those who have no moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow, we, the people, will be here and we want you to know that we are not going to play a lie,” he said. he.
The official timeline of the then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller’s office listed McCarthy, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, the city’s deputy mayor, the director of DC Christopher Rodriguez’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency and the leadership of the Metropolitan Police Department as participants in the call. General Walter Piatt, director of the Army’s General Staff, was also on the phone.
But there was no mention of the involvement of Charles Flynn, a three-star general who has already been approved by Congress for a fourth star. Flynn is responsible for operations, plans and training, but he is not part of the DC National Guard chain of command and has no authority to send troops.
The revelation comes at a time when the Department of Defense is already trying to refute accusations that it denied or delayed sending additional troops as the riot worsened on Capitol Hill, leaving five dead, including a Capitol police officer. A DC official called the process of summoning more guards “long” and “tortured”.
Pentagon officials have repeatedly denied the accusations, insisting that there were no intentional delays, although McCarthy on Monday told CNN that the response was hampered by an “archaic system”.