Evidence has been uncovered that shows former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Commission hid evidence that the White House of former President Donald Trump did request National Guard troops for the Capitol.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s co-chair and one of only two Republicans on the committee, said that there was no evidence to support the former president’s claim that he had requested National Guard troops, but a formerly hidden transcript shows that was not he case and that the evidence does exist, The Federalist reported.
“Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato’s first transcribed interview with the committee was conducted on January 28, 2022. In it, he told Cheney and her investigators that he overheard White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows push Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to request as many National Guard troops as she needed to protect the city,” The Federalist said of the transcript that it exclusively obtained.
“He also testified President Trump had suggested 10,000 would be needed to keep the peace at the public rallies and protests scheduled for January 6, 2021. Ornato also described White House frustration with Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller’s slow deployment of assistance on the afternoon of January 6, 2021,” the report said.
“Not only did the committee not accurately characterize the interview, they suppressed the transcript from public review. On top of that, committee allies began publishing critical stories and even conspiracy theories about Ornato ahead of follow-up interviews with him. Ornato was a career Secret Service official who had been detailed to the security position in the White House,” it said.
Cheney’s Committee posted transcripts that support their claims that Trump is an insurrectionist but more than half of the transcripts for more than 1,000 interviews are not on the website.
“The former J6 Select Committee apparently withheld Mr. Ornato’s critical witness testimony from the American people because it contradicted their pre-determined narrative. Mr. Ornato’s testimony proves what Mr. Meadows has said all along President Trump did, in fact, offer 10,000 National Guard troops to secure the U.S. Capitol, which was turned down,” Georgia Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who is the chair of the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight, told The Federalist.
“This is just one example of important information the former Select Committee hid from the public because it contradicted what they wanted the American people to believe,” he said. “And this is exactly why my investigation is committed to uncovering all the facts, no matter the outcome.”
During the interview with Ornato he said he remembered a conversation Meadows had with Mayor Bowser.
“When it comes to the National Guard statement about having 10,000 troops or any other number of troops, do you recall any discussion prior to the 6th about whether and how many National Guard troops to deploy on January 6th?” a January 6 committee staff member said to him.
“He was on the phone with her and wanted to make sure she had everything that she needed,” he said.
He said Meadows “wanted to know if she needed any more guardsmen.”
“And I remember the number 10,000 coming up of, you know, ‘The president wants to make sure that you have enough.’ You know, ‘He is willing to ask for 10,000.’ I remember that number. Now that you said it, it reminded me of it. And that she was all set. She had, I think it was like 350 or so for intersection control, and those types of things not in the law enforcement capacity at the time,” he said.
