The breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was an unnecessary failure on the part of the FBI and local authorities, including Mayor Bowser's failure to request sufficient numbers of National Guard troops early enough. According to Kash Patel, who served as Chief of Staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller during the Trump administration, the mayor and local law enforcement actions have been "overlooked by too many."
Patel explains that the south side of the Capitol was "totally unmanned, no police officers whatsoever, and that's where the crowd first came through...It has now publicly been admitted by the FBI that they had information that there would possibly be a situation like that at the United States Capitol."
Kash Patel/Jan Jekielek/Kash's Corner Screenshot Rumble
Patel recounts that he and "important leaders" of the Department of Defense "had offered the Capitol Police and Mayor Bowser of Washington D.C. thousands of national guardsmen and women two days before January 6th, and they turned us down so it could have been prevented."
Patel requested a detailed memorandum for record with a written timeline of the events from The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of the Army on the "events that unfolded 48 hours prior all the way through January 6."
The timeline shows the calls placed to Mayor Bowser from "important leaders in the Defense Department" who had secured authorization from President Trump to provide National Guardsman in anticipation of a massive public showing on the 6th.
Patel refers to the minute-by-minute calls placed to the mayor and the meeting with Patel, the Secretary of Defense and:
"The President of the United States two days before where he authorized the use of up to 10 or 20,000 national guardsmen and women around the country should law enforcement make that request. So we had that request ahead of time from the President, and that was part one of what the law requires. Part 2 is a request from local government, and it shows when we, the Defense Department, preemptively went to local government and said, in case you guys need us, we're ready to go now, but we need your requests, and they said we don't need you. I think those actions have been overlooked by too many and these congressional inquiries they're doing—they purposely don't want to look that's what actually happened because the incident could have been prevented [and] should [have] never happened, and it was a failure of law enforcement on that day mostly the FBI."
Patel questions, among other things, why fences were not installed around the Capitol. He also wonders why no cabinet members were briefed and why the FBI failed to place "1000 uniformed agents around the capitol." According to Patel, the FBI has extensive video footage of Jan. 6, but they have refused to release all of it.
In contrast, reporting by Military.com indicates that Guard members from 11 states were rushed in to support the DC National Guard (DCNG) after George Floyd's death in May 2020. "In total, about 5,240 Guard members had converged on D.C., with about 1,500 Guardsmen serving on any given day..."
Patel explains that it is illegal to have the military "descend" upon the Capitol. The protection of the:
"U.S capitol on a day like January 6 is a law enforcement function. You cannot have the United States military descend and occupy the area around the United States capitol. It's literally illegal—but they can assist their law enforcement partners through a request from the Mayor or the Governor, or the Capitol Police. And that's what should happen, and that's what we told them they might want to consider, but they flat out rejected it for political reasons, I believe."
As of Jan. 5, Mayor Bowser had rejected additional support from the District of Columbia. 255 unarmed DCNG were employed "to manage traffic control points alongside local law enforcement." It wasn't until around 13:30 on the 6th when protesters began to march toward the Capitol that the mayor requested an "unspecified number of additional forces." At 14:10, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Sund requested 200 more DCNG and "more if they are available."
At 15:04, full activation of the DCNG (1100 total) was authorized by the Acting Secretary of Defense (A/SD). There was never a denial of a request for extra National Guard.
1100 DCNG Authorized/Full Timeline
The timeline seems to show several instances of scrambling to assemble the necessary reinforcements. The timeline also indicates that the Department of Defense and the Trump administration were not only responsive but had been standing by to help two days prior to Jan. 6.
At 16:08 on the 6th, Vice President Pence asks, "why were more troops not provided in advance?" He was told by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they "fulfilled everything the DC Mayor asked for."
VP Pence Questions/Full Timeline
Patel points out:
"This intelligence was NOT classified. Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts were all closed and boarded up on January 6. It's not like they had better information than the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It's not like they had better information than the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who's responsible for domestic intelligence, right? People had an idea that something bad could happen, so we prepare, and we know it takes us days to mobilize 10 to 20 thousand national guardsmen and women. We have to pull them out of their daily lives away from their families, dress them rehearse them, train them, and then deploy them. So that's why we acted early because we knew we couldn't do it at the drop of a dime on the day of the incident, and that's where people are now just starting to realize that it was a law enforcement function where you could have staged federal law enforcement..."
Boarded up Starbucks/DC
On his June 2 show Kash's Corner, Patel discussed with Epoch Times' Jan Jekielech the way law enforcement has become politicized since the riots— related to George Floyd's death. Patel believes that the defund the police movement, all-cash bail reform (meaning people can no longer be jailed until they post bail), and a "focus on reducing criminal sentencing" all form the "trifecta" that has produced sky-rocketing crime in major cities like Chicago.
According to Patel, the last weekend in May, there were 52 gun crimes in 48 hours in Chicago. "That is insane. It's more than one an hour," he continued. The mayor of Chicago attributed the spike in crime to Covid.
While it is true that "jury trials were suspended during covid, the county's criminal courts have continued operations over the past 15 months," according to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times. Patel believes that defunding the police, forcing policy changes in the judicial system, and the "number of illegal aliens who are committing crimes who are now allowed back into....cities all over the country to commit more crimes" are all significantly contributing to the rise in crime.
During the summer of 2020, a federal courthouse in Portland was occupied and burned during riots there—something unheard of in the U.S. Patel continued:
"Just step back and listen to this. A courthouse in the United States of America in 2020 was taken over by criminals. That's what happens in Banana Republics. That's not what happens in America, and the fact that it did happen should show people that lawlessness and policy decisions have led to real consequences in major cities across America. Portland was basically an occupied area. They literally had sections of the street that law enforcement were not allowed to go on. They were just camped out. And then they took over the courthouse, and then they burned the courthouse. You cannot expect a society to have law enforcement and crime under control when the institutions that house law enforcement are literally on fire and occupied by criminals."
According to reporter Andy Ngo, Antifa set fire to the federal courthouse again in March of 2021—with people still inside.
It has taken over a year for Portland to realize the impact of the policies that allowed a courthouse to be occupied and burned. On May 11, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler asked "the Portland City Council to reestablish a uniformed police squad to patrol communities impacted by fatal shootings," according to reporting by Willamette Week.
Patel also stated that Portlanders:
"Have to live in their own lawlessness and have it impact their lives personally and directly. And so they remove themselves from the political falsehood they've set up and see how bad it's affecting their citizens, and then they realize, wait, we actually need police officers to patrol the streets. We need police officers to arrest people committing crimes, and we need the judicial system to adjudicate them...and then you actually need a prison sentence handed down if you are convicted of a serious crime. You need to be held accountable for that."
Patel believes that, in many ways, how January 6 was handled from a law enforcement perspective was a direct reflection of the very mindset and judicial policies that preceded it.
