The matter of why thousands of National Guard troops remain in Washington has become the capital city’s newest game of hot potato.
The acting Army secretary deferred a question to the bureau about why so many National Guard troops remained positioned around the District of Columbia on Monday. The FBI then declined to respond to request for comment by the Washington Examiner.
“What I can tell you is in terms of what [the FBI is] briefing us is, there are several upcoming events,” acting Army Secretary John Whitley told reporters Monday on a conference call when asked about the current threat assessment in Washington, D.C.
“We do not engage in that intelligence work ourselves,” he said. “We rely on our federal partners and particularly the FBI to provide that information.”
In the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, intelligence failures by law enforcement were cited by former Trump Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who then told the Washington Examiner that the Defense Department relies on federal agencies to make threat assessments.
“We can’t do domestic intelligence. We don’t know,” he said. “It’s against the law.”
Whitley said FBI briefings had indicated that upcoming lawful “First Amendment-protected protests” could be used by “malicious actors” to incite more violence.
“We are posturing our forces to be able to respond to those threats if they emerge,” he added.
In the absence of a governor, Whitley oversees some 13,700 National Guard troops now protecting the District.
The acting Army secretary deferred to the FBI when pressed about specific threats.
In an email to the Washington Examiner, the FBI declined to comment on the threats.
National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Dan Hokanson, and D.C. National Guard Maj. Gen. William Walker said the evolving threat scenario would require 7,000 Guard members to remain this weekend and 5,000 of the citizen-soldiers to stay in the capital until mid-March.
Four federal agencies requested Guard support following the inauguration, resulting in a decision to grant 550 Guard members to the D.C. Metropolitan Police, 500 to the Park Police, 600 to the Secret Service, and 5,000 in support of the Capitol Police, whose 2,000-officer force was overrun by pro-Trump rioters Jan. 6.
While senior defense and national security leaders shift the citizen-soldiers around the capital in an unprecedented way, Guard members themselves wonder when they will be able to return home.
Questions of care and shift lengths have also arisen, with Guard members moved out of the Capitol last week to rest in a parking garage before congressional outcry led to their being allowed to return four hours later.
The Capitol Police have also called for the Guard to reduce their shifts from 12 hours to eight hours, a change that National Guard Bureau spokesperson Nahaku McFadden told the Washington Examiner would happen “as soon as possible.”
For the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Biden, some 26,000 National Guard members, triple that of past inaugurations, helped lock down the capital and prevent dissent.
“We needed every single one of those Guardsmen here to support us,” said Walker. “We were requested to be armed. Everybody is not armed, but we are providing the level of security that was requested by us.”
