Optics
A lot can happen in three hours.
It took more than three hours for former President Donald Trump’s Defense Department to approve a request for D.C.’s National Guard to intervene in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the commanding general of the outfit told senators on Wednesday.
…
“At 1:49 p.m. I received a frantic call from then-Chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters,” Maj. Gen. William Walker told the Senate Homeland and Rules committees in a joint hearing.
“Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.”
Walker said he “immediately” alerted Army senior leadership of the request. He was not informed of the required approval from then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller until 5:08 p.m., he said — “3 hours and 19 minutes later.”
Make that a lot can happen in three hours and nineteen minutes.
The Army major general testified that the day before the insurrection, he received a letter with the “unusual” restriction from deploying any Quick Reaction Force service members, unless granted explicit approval by then-Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy.
“I found that requirement to be unusual, as was the requirement to seek approval to move guardsmen supporting the Metropolitan Police Department to move from one traffic control point to another,” Walker said.
It was about the optics.
Walker said that Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt and Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn were concerned about optics of sending the National Guard to the scene of the uprising.
“They both said it wouldn’t be in their best military advice to advise the secretary of the Army to have uniformed guards members at the Capitol during the election confirmation,” Walker said.
Funny how the optics are not a concern when it’s about the military pushing protesters out of Lafayette Park so that Trump can wave a bible, but they are a concern when it’s a matter of preventing armed Nazis and racists from smashing their way into the Capitol.
Charles Flynn being the brother of the better know Michael Flynn, who was at that point openly promoting the overthrow of a lawfully elected Government. But sure, nothing to see there, Charles demand recommendations were all perfectly appropriate and didn’t create a soft window of opportunity for an insurrection.
White men with guns get to have ‘optics’ factored in. Ruby Ridge; Waco; Malheur; every time, the perpetrators get to pose as opwesséd victims, and law enforcement grovels before them.