The National Guard and the Capitol Police are offering conflicting accounts of an incident Thursday night that forced exhausted Guard members out of a Capitol rest area and into a nearby parking garage before angry lawmakers essentially reversed the order.
“Someone somewhere from the Capitol Police requested that they move out of the actual Capitol building and into the Thurgood Marshall garage,” National Guard Bureau spokesman Maj. Matt Murphy told the Washington Examiner Friday morning.
However, the Capitol Police offered a different explanation.
“I want to assure everyone that, with the exception of specific times on Inauguration Day itself while the swearing-in ceremonies were underway, the United States Capitol police did not instruct the National Guard to vacate the Capitol Building facilities,” acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said in a statement Friday morning.
Pittman contended all Guard members have been relocated to space within the Capitol complex.
“The department is also working with the Guard to reduce the need for sleeping accommodations by establishing shorter shifts and will ensure they have access to the comfortable accommodations they absolutely deserve when the need arises,” she said.
An earlier statement said the Capitol Police had requested Guard members work no more than eight-hour shifts “to allow for more off-campus rest time post-inauguration.”
The 7,000 Guard members working on 12-hour rotations were resting on their packs near the Emancipation Hall when the order was delivered, Murphy explained. The Guard is due to draw down 15,000 members Friday and is in the process of coordinating the complex logistics of returning Guard members to their families and jobs.
Following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, federal and District of Columbia officials determined 25,000 of the citizen-soldiers were needed to safeguard the capital city and the Capitol complex within it. Guard troops are not active-duty forces, meaning they have day jobs and live at home with their families. Yet, some still unknown official ignored all of that and sent them to a Capitol Hill parking garage.
“Because the break area was the garage, even though it was heated and had a restroom, it caused quite a ruckus on social media,” Murphy said. “A whole lot of senators and representatives got involved in it.”
Among the first tweets to reach the Guard Bureau’s radar were from Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and army veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth, he confirmed. The uproar led to a reversal of the decision and the Guard members were allowed to return.
Murphy said getting Guard members out of the cold was officials’ priority.
“You’re still talking hundreds or a couple thousand folks based on rotational shifts, if you’re taking a break, right? So, where did they go?” Murphy said. “It’s inclement weather, right? They need to warm up, right? So that’s why there were all those pictures in the Capitol.”
