JAN 11, 12:53 PM

Your Questions About How The National Guard Works In D.C., Answered

Dominique Maria Bonessi | https://twitter.com/dbonessi

Capitol Police were underprepared and overwhelmed when violent Trump supporters began breaching the U.S. Capitol last week.

The D.C. National Guard wasn’t far away — troops had already been approved to assist with traffic and crowd control for the day's rallies. But at that point, they lacked the authority to be on Capitol grounds. Ultimately, members of the guard did arrive, but only after hours of chaos at the building.

What caused the delay? And how does the deployment of the National Guard work more broadly? Here’s what we know.

What exactly is the National Guard?

The National Guard is the U.S. military’s domestic force. Each state, the District, and Puerto Rico have their own National Guard units. Troops have occasionally been called upon to serve overseas, as they were in Iraq and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. But their main mission is at home. The largest such effort was to help the Gulf states after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

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