Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy visits Army National Guard soldiers in Washington on June 4.
WASHINGTON: Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy will have a conference call with House Armed Services Committee members this afternoon to answer questions about the now-dwindling deployment of 5,200 National Guard members to Washington last week, and why Guard helicopters buzzed protesters.
McCarthy’s call comes as House lawmakers are fuming over the refusal of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley to appear before them this week.
HASC chairman Rep. Adam Smith and 30 Democratic HASC members issued a statement calling Esper and Milley’s absence “unacceptable,” adding, “we insist that they appear before our committee. Our military leaders are sworn to be accountable to the people of this country, and Congress is constitutionally responsible for oversight. They must appear and testify on these crucial matters in order to meet that responsibility.”
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in an email that Esper and Milley “have not ‘refused’ to testify before the HASC as some are reporting. The DOD legislative affairs team remains in discussion with the HASC on this request.”
However, McCarthy, Army Chief of Staff Gen. McConville, and DC National Guard Commanding General Maj. Gen. Walker are talking to the committee today.
Esper and Milley have come under fire for their handling of the situation in Washington, including stationing 1,600 active duty troops just outside of the capital, and accompanying President Trump on his June 1 march to St. John’s Church one block from the White House after Lafayette Square was violently cleared of protesters on orders of administration officials.
“We came right up to the edge of bringing active troops here, and we didn’t,” McCarthy told reporters yesterday, a call in which he took responsibility for the deployments of Guard members in the city.
McCarthy said he and Walker “drove all over the city, talking to soldiers and telling them to keep your cool, keep your cool and continue to keep the temperature down. People are angry and frustrated, as they should be, and we are working really hard with that.”
A major point of concern are the actions of the U.S. Park Police and supporting forces to clear the park before the president’s now-infamous walk.
The melee, which captured headlines around the world for the swift and violent action by police to push protesters back remains shrouded in mystery. A week later, it remains unclear who gave the actual order to move, and when. Attorney General William Barr has spent several days denying responsibility, despite early reports that he told the police to clear the area. Pentagon and Army leaders have said they had no idea the push was coming.
Walker told reporters Sunday that frozen water bottles and eggs has been thrown at police by protesters on the day before the clearing operation. Five soldiers were hit in the head and one suffered a concussion. But Guard members did not “use force of any kind on protesters. As far as National Guardsmen pushing back, that did not happen. They were never aggressive, never offensive. They took a strictly defensive posture.”
Despite that restraint, Walker and McCarthy appeared to be unaware of any order for the police to charge the protestors, in which video has emerged of officers beating journalists and shooting tear gas into the crowd. McCarthy said he “did not know what triggered the Park Police to make the clearing” and that an ongoing investigation should clear up some of the confusion. The Australian ambassador to Washington, Australia’s ambassador to the United States publicly complained about the attack on Channel 7 TV reporters at the park. The network’s news director Craig McPherson called the police’s action “nothing short of wanton thuggery.”
“I do not know why they advanced,” Walker said of the Park Police. “We were directed to maintain the line.”
That confusion will surely be a prime avenue for lawmakers to explore, as well as the Lakota and Black Hawk helicopters caught on video hovering low over protesters, generating such powerful downdrafts that branches snapped off trees.
McCarthy took responsibility for the use of helicopters and said an investigation has been opened into the tactic, which has been derided as dangerous in such a dense urban environment filled with mostly peaceful protesters. Walker added that he did not issue any orders to employ helicopters to disperse crowds, but would not offer any specifics on what happened, only adding that an investigation should be wrapped up and released later this week. The head of the DC National Guard has opened an investigation into the matter.
The Guard deployment, which peaked last week at 5,200 troops, is quickly winding down. Troops from Maryland, New Jersey and Mississippi have already left Washington, while Guardsmen from Florida, Utah, and Indiana, are heading home today. The remaining troops from Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, Idaho, and Tennessee will likely be gone by Tuesday.
While the active duty forces are gone, and the guard is on its way out, the police presence in downtown Washington remains substantial. The White House resembles a fortified bunker behind rings of eight-foot high reinforced fencing and security from the bottom of the Ellipse to the north side of Lafayette Park. In a remarkable bit of doublespeak, the Secret Service release announcing the enormous expanse of fencing says: “These closures are in an effort to maintain the necessary security measures surrounding the White House complex, while also allowing for peaceful demonstration.”
Lawmakers get the chance to talk to Army and Guard leadership today, but with Milley and Esper holding out, and markups on the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act getting underway this week, it could be a long summer on Capitol Hill for the Pentagon.
Still, McCarthy said he’s probably best-suited to explain to the Congress what happened in Washington, and why. “I’ve been intimately involved in the process and can explain a lot of the decisions,” he said. “General Walker, as the commander, was pretty well-suited to explain our actions” that took place between May 29 and today.