Pentagon Officials Feared Trump Would Try To Use Troops In His Jan. 6 Coup Attempt

Source: HuffPost

Pentagon Officials Feared Trump Would Try To Use Troops In His Jan. 6 Coup Attempt

The Jan. 6 committee found that some officials believed that Trump would issue an "illegal order" and that there was no intentional delay in deploying the military.

By S.V. Date
Dec 19, 2022, 02:19 PM EST

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials feared President Donald Trump would issue an “illegal order” commanding troops to help with his coup attempt to retain power, the House Jan. 6 committee found.

“The select committee recognizes that some at the department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election,” the committee wrote in the executive summary of its final report, released Monday.

The finding comes in the section analyzing why it took hours for National Guard troops to be deployed to the Capitol to counter the mob that Trump had sent there to pressure his own vice president into voiding Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election and allowing him to remain in office.

Trump himself has accused Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of failing to deploy troops, even though she lacked any authority to do, while some Democrats have suggested the military intentionally delayed a response to give Trump’s mob a chance to accomplish what he wanted.

The committee, though, found that there was no Defense Department attempt to help Trump.

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Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-military-coup-attempt_n_63a08c5de4b0a13a9508faa7