White House official says then-President Donald Trump offered 10,000 troops to secure the Capitol.
A previously hidden transcript of an interview conducted by a U.S. House of Representatives panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol has been revealed, undermining a committee claim.
Anthony Ornato, who was the White House deputy chief of staff during the breach, told the committee that he overheard Mark Meadows, who was then chief of staff, on the phone with Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser. According to the transcript, Mr. Meadows wanted to ensure Ms. Bowser “had everything she needed.”
Mr. Meadows “wanted to know if she need[ed] any more guardsmen,” Mr. Ornato testified. “And I remember the number 10,000 coming up of, ‘The president wants to make sure that you have enough.’ You know, ‘He is willing to ask for 10,000.’ I remember that number. Now that you said it, it reminded me of it.”
Ms. Bowser said that “she was all set,” Mr. Ornato recalled.
Mr. Ornato was speaking to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
The committee said in its final report that it “found no evidence” supporting the idea that former President Donald Trump ordered 10,000 troops to be ready for Jan. 6.“The former J6 Select Committee apparently withheld Mr. Ornato’s critical witness testimony from the American people because it contradicted their pre-determined narrative,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who released the transcript, said in a statement.
“Mr. Ornato’s testimony proves what Mr. Meadows has said all along, President Trump did in fact offer 10,000 National Guard troops to secure the U.S. Capitol, which was turned down,” Mr. Loudermilk, the chairman of the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, added.
Speaking to Fox News, Mr. Meadows previously said, “As many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the secretary of defense. That was a direct order from President Trump.”
President Trump, according to Mr. Miller, responded: “You’re going to need 10,000 people.” But Mr. Miller told the select committee that he “never … knew of any plans of that nature.”
“There was no direct, there was no order from the president,” he later added.
The committee highlighted Mr. Miller’s testimony in its final report but did not mention Mr. Ornato’s testimony, nor did it include Mr. Miller’s previous quote, Mr. Meadows’s comment, or President Trump’s remarks.
Other Details
Mr. Ornato also testified that White House officials on Jan. 6 kept trying to get Guard personnel deployed through the day of the breach.
While Mr. Miller on Jan. 6 approved additional forces they took hours to arrive on the scene.
Mr. Meadows “kept getting Miller on the phone, wanting to know where they were, why aren’t they there yet,” Mr. Ornato said.
“Every time he would ask, ‘What’s taking so long?’ It would be, like, ‘This isn’t just start the car and we’re there. We have to muster them up, we have to … we only have so many here right now. They’re given an hour to get ready,‘“ Mr. Ornato also said. ”So, there’s, like, all these timelines that was [sic] being explained to the chief. And he relayed that, like, he’s like, ‘I don’t care, just get them here,’ you know, and ‘Get them to the Capitol, not to the White House.’”
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