Sorry, But There’s ZERO Evidence That Trump Offered Nat. Guard For January 6th

Even the wackiest conspiracy theories usually have at least a grain of truth.

The claim that “Donald Trump offered 10,000 (or 20,000) National Guard troops for HIS rally on January 6^th but was turned down by Pelosi and Chuck Schumer” looks to be a rare example of a crackpot theory having absolutely ZERO bases in truth.

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The claim, as expressed by our frequent caller “Smooth Brain Guy”:

Buzz, you bumbling oaf…if you look at the official timeline (?) ‘the department of defense support via the national guard was refused by the senate and house sergeant-at-arms, who reports to Pelosi. - Smooth Brain Guy

Notice the subtle change Smooth Brain tries to pull here. The request was turned down by the Sgt at Arms “who REPORTS to Pelosi”.

Wait for a second, Smooth Brain Guy! The claim wasn’t that the Sgt.-at-Arms turned down the request. The claim was that PELOSI herself turned it down.

(Also, Schumer wasn’t even the Senate majority leader on January 6^th. Mitch McConnell still held that position.)

I’m sure the senate sergeant-at-arms is lower on the pyramid than the Speaker of the House. In that sense, yes, he probably does answer the speaker. But nowhere is there any evidence…in fact, there’s not even a claim… that sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving ever passed a request along to Speaker Pelosi.

In a letter to Pelosi on February 1, the Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund wrote that he “approached the two sergeants-at-arms” (Irving and the Senate SAA Michael Stenger) about the possible need for more National Guard troops. The Capitol Chief wrote to Pelosi,

Mr. Stenger suggested I ask them how quickly we could get support if needed and to ‘lean forward’ in case we had to request assistance on January 6. - Steven Sund, Capitol Police Chief

There’s no evidence or even assertion that either man communicated any of this to Pelosi on or before January 6.

It wasn’t until the days AFTER the attempted insurrection that Fox personalities Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity spun this account into the accusation that “Pelosi turned down Trump’s offer”.

They had to fall back on SOMETHING after it became apparent that the rioter was “actually Antifa and BLM” as they HAD been claiming.

Trump’s Sec. of Defense on January 6, Chris Miller, testified to the Jan 6 Committee that the President had mentioned “needing 10,000 National Guardsmen” for his rally but that Miller interpreted that as typical Trump hyperbole, his was about preemptively bragging about his crowd-size. Miller testified that he DID NOT take Trump seriously and didn’t follow up on the comment.

As far as “the official timeline”, you’ll have to be a little more specific, Smooth Brain. I tried for hours to find an “official timeline” that implicated Pelosi in refusing additional guard troops. I did find, however, the timeline that the DoD put out on January 8^th to,

“...memorialize the planning and efforts of the Department of Defense to address the Violent Attack at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th”.

You can read it at that link but I can save you some time.

It talks about coordination between D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, acting Defense Secretary Miller, the D.C. Metro Police, the Capitol Police, etc.  No smoking gun of offers made and/or declined.

In fact, that DoD document doesn’t even MENTION Pelosi or Schumer until January 6^th, well AFTER the siege on the Capitol had begun. BEFORE January 6^th, my guess is that no one, Pelosi and Schumer included, thought that a sitting president would actually attempt a violent coup of the U.S. government.

The main thing I can identify is that Pelosi, Schumer, et al did something wrong.

They gave Trump too much credit for being a loyal American.