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Maryland’s National Guard was immediately readied to tackle the Capitol riots — but the Pentagon didn’t allow it to deploy for almost two hours, even as lawmakers begged for their help, Gov. Larry Hogan charged Sunday.
“Within minutes of this attack, I called a security team together … I immediately called up the National Guard,” Hogan told CNN’s “State of the Union” of his response to being told the “Capitol was under attack.”
“And I was getting called from the leaders of Congress pleading with me to get our guard into the city,” he said.
But in DC, only the Department of Defense can allow guard members from other states to move in — and permission was not granted for almost two hours, well after the worst of the carnage was done, he confirmed to CNN.
“Our guard mobilized and was ready, but we couldn’t actually cross over the border into DC without the OK,” Hogan told Jake Tapper.
“And that was quite some time … we kept running it up the flagpole, our generals talking to the National Guard generals,” he said.
“Eventually, I got a call from Ryan McCarthy, the Secretary of the Army, asking if we could come into the city,” he said.
“We were just waiting for that call,” he stressed, saying he “can’t speak as to what was going on on the other end of the line back at the Pentagon or in the White House” to explain the delay.
“I don’t know all the reasons … I can just tell you that we were taking actions immediately, we were ready, and there was a delay,” he said.
The governor insisted that the biggest failing, however, was in the “Capitol police and federal law enforcement agencies not [being] prepared for this” despite so much warning about the huge Trump rally planned that day.
Hogan accused President Trump of having “blood on his hands” for the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Police officer.
“No question in my mind that he was. He was responsible for inciting this, this riotous mob,” he told CNN.
“This was an insurrection and they stormed the Capitol and threatened to kill the vice president and put the lives of people in danger, and he had a huge part, a huge role to play in that,” the governor said.
Three people died in medical emergencies and one protester was fatally shot when she tried to crawl through a window during the mayhem as the mob descended on the Capitol, breaking windows and ransacking congressional offices.
Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died of his wounds Thursday after being beaten with a fire extinguisher as he tried to stop the pro-Trump rioters.
The mob descended on the Capitol just as congressional lawmakers were voting to certify the Electoral College vote for President-election Joe Biden and shortly after Trump spoke at a rally on the National Mall of his supporters.
The vote was delayed for several hours, but continued with the joint-session of Congress certifying Biden’s win in the Nov. 3 presidential election early Thursday morning.
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