Pentagon chief during Jan. 6 riot to defend military response
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump’s acting defense secretary during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots planned Tuesday to tell Congress that he was concerned in the days before the insurrection that sending troops to the building would fan fears of a military coup and could cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings, according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press.
Christopher Miller’s testimony is aimed at defending the Pentagon’s response to the chaos of the day, and rebutting broad criticism that military forces were too slow to arrive, even as pro-Trump rioters violently breached the building and stormed inside. He casts himself as a deliberate leader who was determined that the military have only limited involvement, a perspective he says was shaped by criticism of the aggressive response to the civil unrest that roiled American cities months earlier, as well as decades-old episodes that ended in violence.
The Defense Department, he planned Tuesday to tell members of the House Oversight Committee the next day, has “an extremely poor record in supporting domestic law enforcement,” including during civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s.
“And some 51 years ago, on May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard troops fired at demonstrators at Kent State University and killed four American civilians,” Miller planned to say, adding, “I was committed to avoiding repeating these scenarios.”
He also planned to deny that Trump, criticized for failing to forcefully condemn the rioters, had any involvement in the Defense Department’s response, and planned to say that Trump had even suggested that 10,000 troops might be needed for Jan. 6.
Miller will be the most senior Defense Department official to participate in congressional hearings on the riots. The sessions have been characterized by fingerpointing by officials across agencies about missed intelligence, poor preparations, and an inadequate law-enforcement response.