Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reads the same intelligence briefing every morning as President Biden, including threat assessments related to extremists and the U.S. Capitol — and he believes the National Guard should stay on duty there.
“He is constantly monitoring the situation,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the Washington Examiner Thursday. “He wants to get them home as soon as possible.”
The FBI handles threat assessments in the Washington, D.C., region that are being used to justify what officials, though without describing that intelligence, say is a need for some 7,500 Guardsmen to remain in the capital city.
The FBI declined to tell the Washington Examiner how often it provides security briefings and to whom, but it said that intelligence is collected and shared promptly.
“The FBI is constantly gathering information to identify any potential threats, and we share that information with our partners in a timely manner,” a bureau spokesperson said.
Snowy, freezing conditions in recent days have led the D.C. National Guard to provide additional cold weather gear and heated rest areas to the overall Guard force around town, who continue patrolling a vast swath of fenced-in federal buildings in the vicinity of the Capitol despite what some GOP lawmakers contend is no discernable threat.
Acting Army Secretary John Whitley told reporters last week that FBI briefings to the Guard had indicated that “malicious actors” may incite violence during “First Amendment-protected protests.”
No such protests have transpired, however.
Still, Guard members stood 30 feet apart Thursday with submachine guns held close to their chests as they gazed out from behind razor-wire-topped, nonscalable fencing at the south edge of the Capitol facing Union Station.
Austin, a retired Army four-star general who once reviewed daily intelligence reports for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as the commander of U.S. Central Command, visited Guard members last Friday to reassure them that their mission mattered. Those military intelligence reports included reams of information about extremist groups in that region, giving him years of experience assessing the threats posed by such organizations.
“As he told the National Guardsmen Friday, I mean, he very much wants to get them back home and back to their lives and to their jobs and to their families as soon as possible,” Kirby told Pentagon reporters Wednesday. “We also have what we still consider to be a valid requirement for their assistance, and we’re going to have to, you know, continue to meet that.”
The Department of Homeland Security warned in a recent bulletin that ideologically motivated extremists could incite or commit violence in the coming weeks.
Even with some Republican lawmakers claiming no further threat exists around the building in which they vote and debate, senior Pentagon officials have repeatedly declined to comment on intelligence assessments or specific possible threats.
Current requirements call for a Guard force presence of some 5,000 until March 14 to support the Secret Service, the Park Police, the U.S. Capitol Police, and the district’s Metropolitan Police.
