Two former leaders of the D.C. guard have finally come forward in closed-door testimony to Congress and said the quiet part loud — Donald Trump absolutely could have stopped the violent, deadly January 6th attack against the US Capitol, he just chose not to.
Michael Brooks, the senior enlisted leader of the D.C. guard on Jan. 6, and Brigadier Gen. Aaron Dean, the adjutant general of the D.C. guard during that same time both recently gave closed-door testimonies to the House Administration Committee where they said, without question, that Donald J. Trump, in his capacity as the United State President at the time, could have quickly quelled the infamously violent Capitol insurrection and coordinated a timely response from the state’s National Guard if he had just called Pentagon leaders to put a plan in place on that fateful day, instead of allowing chaos, confusion, and violence to reign supreme.
According to transcripts of the closed-door testimonies obtained by Politico, a committee staffer asked Brooks, “Could the president have picked up the phone, called the secretary of defense, and said, you know, ‘What’s going on here?’ Our law enforcement is getting overrun, make this happen!’”
Brooks responded, “I assume he could expedite an approval through the secretary of defense, through the secretary of the army.”
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During the January 6th House Select Committee’s investigation into the insurrection, Trump administration officials testified that the then-sitting president — the same person whose name the insurrection was born in — did not call military officials as the Capitol was under attack. It was this particular revelation that led the committee to their ultimate determination that Donald Trump was responsible for the violent riot carried out by a mob of his supporters.
Politico reports that Brooks confirmed these claims in his own recent testimony.
Dean agreed with this sentiment, adding that, had Trump reached out to Pentagon leaders, that fateful day would have gone a lot differently.
“I think if the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Defense, or the president had said, ‘Go,’ … or a combination thereof had said ‘Go,’ then we would’ve gone and we would’ve been there much faster,” Dean said in his March 26 testimony.
The publication notes that Brooks and Dean are among four witnesses slated to give testimony to Congress this week over security failures that led and contributed to the January 6th Capitol attack.
Featured image via DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Marianique Santos
