Former President Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he expressed concern about the size of the crowd near the Capitol days before last month’s deadly riots and personally requested that 10,000 National Guard soldiers be sent in response.
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Trump told “The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton” that his team alerted the Department of Defense days before the rally that the crowd may be larger than anticipated and 10,000 national guards must be ready to be dispatched. He said that – as far as he is concerned – the warning was passed on to leaders on Capitol Hill, including Mayor, Nancy Pelosi – and he heard that the request was rejected because those leaders did not like the view of 10,000 soldiers on Capitol Hill.
“So, you know, that was a big mistake,” he said.
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Pelosi’s office and the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a question via email from Fox News. Trump told Steve Hilton, the show’s host, that he “hated” seeing what would happen on January 6 at the United States Capitol.
Much of what led to the Capitol riot remains a mystery.
Last week, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told a bipartisan Senate panel that he did not know at the time that his officers had received a report from the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia, which he expected in details, the chances that extremists could bring “war” to Washington the next day.
The head of the FBI’s Washington office said that as soon as he received the January 5 warning, the information was quickly shared with other law enforcement agencies through a joint terrorism task force.
Sund and House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving also failed to agree on when assistance from the National Guard was sought.
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Sund said he submitted the application at 1:09 pm on January 6. But Irving insisted that he did not receive a request for support from the National Guard until after 2 pm, when he was in the office of ex-Senate weapons sergeant Michael Stenger. When pressed, Irving said he had received a call from Sund before, while on Congress.
Sund and Irving disagreed about when the National Guard was called and about previous requests for guard. Sund said he spoke with Stenger and Irving about the National Guard’s request in the days before the riot, and that Irving said he was concerned about the “optics” of having them present. Irving denied this, saying that Sund’s account was “categorically false”.
Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., told Fox News earlier this month that he is in favor of a 9/11-style committee to examine the key details that contributed to last month’s deadly riot on Capitol Hill.
Republicans signaled that the evidence could show that Democratic leaders were aware of the threat and did little to prevent the January 6 attack.
Pelosi said the commission will “investigate and report the facts and causes related to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the United States Capitol Complex … and related to interference with the peaceful transfer of power.”
Trump told Hilton that, contrary to what has been circulating, he was not watching the turmoil in real time and only started to follow events later, when he learned of the chaos.
Trump said he hated to see the rebellion, but compared it to the unrest that occurred in cities like Portland and Seattle.
“I hate to see any of this, but it is a double standard,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report