It took Md. hours to get OK to send in Guard
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday it took nearly two hours for the Pentagon to provide authorization for his state to send its National Guard contingent into Washington to help protect the U.S. Capitol as it came under attack from a violent proTrump mob. He said that he and District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser had been in contact and she had requested assistance but that they needed the Department of Defense to sign off because of the district’s status as not a state.
“Our Guard mobilized and was ready but we couldn’t actually cross over the border into D.C. without the OK and that was quite some time. We kept running it up the flagpole – our generals talking to the National Guard generals,” Hogan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
“I 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,” Hogan added. “I was in the middle of a meeting when my chief of staff came in and said the Capitol was under attack. ... We were in contact with the mayor’s office who requested assistance. We immediately sent police assistance. I immediately called up the National Guard.”
Hogan said that eventually, his office got a call from Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy asking them to send to deploy their National Guard.
“We had already been mobilizing. We already had our police there. We already had our Guard mobilized and we were just waiting for that call,” he said.
“All I know is that we were trying to get answers and we weren’t getting answers,” Hogan said.