two things under the law: You need the President's authorization to do so, and you need a request from a mayor, a Governor, or a Federal law enforcement agency.
So, at some point in time, we undertook—because it takes time to employ, deploy, and mobilize the National Guard. We're pulling these people out of their daily lives of being doctors, lawyers, and cops. So we preemptively—I don't know the exact date—prepared slowly, and as—ultimately as you see outlined in the outline that I provided—went to, I believe Mayor Bowser and the Capitol Police and said, "Do you need the National Guard before January 6th?" And I believe—the timeline is the best record, but I believe the timeline says they said—they, the mayor and the Capitol Police said, "No, we don't need National Guard."
Q What prompted you—and we've seen emails where you've—there was back and forth of make sure they—that we ask them and get the dates down for creating the timeline as to when Capitol Police was asked. What prompted DOD or yourself to make sure the Capitol Police did not need any additional help?
A Well, it was one of our responsibilities. It was—we, the Department of Defense, are responsible for the National Guard. And so I believe at the time I was reacting to a number of things that were coming in from FBI and DHS. And I thought, and I believe the Acting Secretary and I believe the Chairman as well, but you'd have to ask them, the DOD's bottom line: Prepare, be prepared, and hope for the best. And we did that across every theater of war and every line of effort we had, including Jan. 6th, as best we could.
Q On—does anyone have any questions on that point?
On exhibit 15 is, "The chairman has confirmed a call for 13:30 today," so that is January 2nd at 1:30. And it states, "The chairman also recommends that a policy representative like Ken Rapuano and an OGC rep participate based on their prior
