National Guard members standing duty at the U.S. Capitol Monday still don’t know when they can go home as 5,000 are expected to remain on duty into the spring.
On a 36-degree, overcast Washington morning, some of the 13,700 Guard members in the capital huddled together near seven-foot perimeter fences. They wore black caps on their heads, some wore gloves, others hopped or stretched, and most had their hands tucked into their vests, breath visible as they spoke.
“I’d like to know that,” one California Guard member told the Washington Examiner when asked when he can go home.
The young Guard member spoke through a light green gaiter mask while standing several feet behind a black, nonscalable fence. A five-year Army veteran who served in South Korea, he clearly wanted to tell his young daughter and son when their father would be home.
“If we’re here, it’s obviously a deterrent,” he said when asked what threat, if any, he was protecting the Capitol against. “If we’re not here, then what happens?”
A Capitol Police officer then asked a reporter outside the fence for press identification and said to direct questions to the agency’s press office. The quick work to shut down the questioning came after then-President Donald Trump fired up a crowd of supporters at a Jan. 6 rally and urged them to head to the Capitol, where lawmakers had just begun counting the Electoral College votes, which showed he lost the election.
Trump urged them to “fight like Hell” after his attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, told them it was time for “trial by combat” because Democrats had stolen the race from Trump. Multiple federal judges, including ones appointed by Trump, threw out the president’s legal challenges in a handful of swing states. The resulting angry mob broke into the legislative hall after overrunning an unprepared Capitol Police force, ransacking the building and making verbal threats to top lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to do Trump’s bidding by somehow kicking the electoral votes back to the states.
On the empty streets, where only an occasional jogger would jaunt by, U.S. Park Police K-9 units drove along the sidewalk at 3rd Street and Madison Avenue NW, hundreds of feet from the partially dismantled inauguration stage.
Three federal agencies and the National Guard still view a continued threat by right-wing groups who support Trump and see Democrats as dangerously corrupt as a threat to the District of Columbia, promising to keep 5,000 to 7,000 Guard troops on duty in support of law enforcement until mid-March, a decision that was made after the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Biden concluded.
More than 26,000 Guard members from all 50 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia were on duty providing security for the inauguration last week.
“They’re drawing down over the next couple of days,” National Guard Bureau spokeswoman Nahaku McFadden told the Washington Examiner.
“A particular, singular individual may not know exactly when they may be leaving, but for the National Guard, we’re staying here through mid-March,” she added. McFadden explained that Guard members who needed to return home for family or work reasons would be allowed to do so.
The fencing and barbed wire that has gone up in recent weeks contain a vast perimeter that extends for blocks beyond the Capitol to include adjacent federal buildings.
The Guard previously stated that 800 of its citizen-soldiers, who have been taken from their families and day jobs, were protecting the Capitol building itself — but McFadden would not confirm how many members remain, citing operational security.
The National Guard deferred questions about the threat assessment requiring the protection to the FBI.
“It’s interesting that they would push you to us for that one,” an FBI official told the Washington Examiner.
“We do do threat assessment,” the official clarified. “We’re deferring to National Guard and Secret Service on whether National Guard thinks that they need to be out there.”
In an email response, the FBI said it had no comment and referred questions to the Capitol Police or the Metropolitan Police Department.
In one scene at the Capitol perimeter, three Guard members quickly approached the fence where other Guard members were talking to a reporter.
“We’re here to support the First Amendment,” one of the Guard members said sternly. “That’s all we’re here to do.”
Most Guard members who spoke to the Washington Examiner Monday morning said they were not allowed to answer questions or provide their names, states, and arrival dates. They also declined to describe their rest area inside the Capitol complex.
Even those who would not answer other questions made clear they had no idea when they could go home.
“No idea,” answered one Guard member manning an entrance to the Capitol where black Chevrolet SUVs entered, and well-dressed young staffers with iPhone ear pods flashed their badges and scurried past Capitol Police.
Some Guard forces only got to Washington in recent days, with the idea they will replace others who are heading to their home states. Some state leaders, such as Republicans ones in Texas, Florida, Montana, and New Hampshire, have said they’re calling their Guard troops home following thousands being moved by an unknown Capitol Police officer from the Capitol Visitor Center to a nearby parking garage, forcing them to nap on concrete floors and share a limited number of restrooms.
On the South Capitol Street side, two female Guard members from California said they arrived after last Thursday’s controversial Guard rest area relocation from the Capitol to a nearby garage and back.
“They’re taking good care of us,” one woman said. As to when they would leave: “It’s all up in the air.”
