Why the wait?
For three hours and 19 minutes, while Pentagon generals sat on their hands as frantic pleas came to them to let the D.C. National Guard confront the mob in the Capitol on Jan. 6, the Trump-incited rioters smashed up the building. People died. Police were beaten. Lawmakers hid for their lives. Americans watched in horror.
It didn’t have to be that way. And it was unusual. Quite unusual.
“At 1:49 p.m., I received a frantic call from then-chief of United States Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter of the United States Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters,” Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, commander of the D.C. Guard, testified Wednesday to a joint Senate committee investigating the attack.
“Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency at the Capitol, and he requested the immediate assistance of as many available national guardsmen that I could muster,” Walker continued.