WASHINGTON, DC - A new revelation from The Federalist confirms what most right-thinking Americans already knew: the January 6th inquisition committee suppressed evidence that would have confirmed the claim made by former President Donald Trump that he pushed for 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the U.S. Capitol during the worst “insurrection” in world history.
A previously hidden transcript obtained by The Federalist debunks claims made by former Rep. Liz Cheney and the rest of the committee that there was “no evidence” that President Trump requested National Guard troops to protect the Capitol after he became aware of the possibility of violence during the certification of the 2020 election.
Cheney personally attended and participated in an interview, during which the transcript revealed evidence that completely undermined the claims made by her, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and others.
Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato was interviewed on January 28, 2022. During that session, Ornato told Cheney and other congressional “investigators” that he personally overheard White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pushing Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to request as many National Guard troops as she needed to protect the nation’s capital.
Ornato further testified that Trump said at least 10,000 National Guard troops would be needed to deal with public rallies and protests expected to take place on January 6, 2021. Ornato also said that the White House was “frustrated” with the slow deployment of assistance offered by Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller on the afternoon of January 6.
It’s bad enough that the January 6 “Select” Committee didn’t accurately describe Ornato’s interview–the suppressed the transcript from public scrutiny. Moreover, the committee and its allies attempted to kneecap Ornato by “publishing critical stories and even conspiracy theories about Ornato ahead of follow-up interviews with him,” The Federalist reported.
Ornato served as a career Secret Service official and was assigned to a security position inside the White House.
According to Cheney, critics were invited to look at the Government Publishing Office website, where she said the committee made available “transcripts, documents, exhibits & our meticulously sourced 800+ page final report.” That website, The Federalist wrote, “provides ‘supporting documents’ to the claims made by Cheney and fellow anti-Trump enthusiasts.”
Despite Cheney’s claims, less than half of the over 1,000 interviews conducted by her committee are posted on the Government Publishing Office’s website. It is unknown how many of the hidden transcripts also contain exonerating information suppressed by the committee, The Federalist noted.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) said the released documents serve one purpose–to support the committee’s anti-Trump narrative rather than the truth of what actually occurred in the lead-up and on the date of the January 6 Capitol siege.
“The former J6 Select Committee apparently withheld Mr. Ornato’s critical witness testimony from the American people because it contradicted their pre-determined narrative,” Loudermilk, chairman of the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight, said. “Mr. Ornato’s testimony proves what Mr. Meadows has said all along: President Trump did, in fact, offer 10,000 National Guard troops to secure the U.S. Capitol, which was turned down.”
Loudermilk’s subcommittee is looking into the “investigation” conducted by the January 6 committee, long accused of unethical behavior instead of accuracy and which has been accused of colluding with other efforts pushed by the Democrats to prosecute political opponents, Trump in particular.
“This is just one example of important information the former Select Committee hid from the public because it contradicted what they wanted the American people to believe,” Loudermilk continued. “And this is exactly why my investigation is committed to uncovering all the facts, no matter the outcome.”
At one point, Ornato was asked if he recalled any discussion before January 6 concerning the National Guard and how many troops, if any, were requested. Ornato answered in the affirmative that he had overheard a conversation between Meadows and Bowser in which Meadows wanted to ensure that Bowser “had everything she needed,” Ornato recalled.
The concerns expressed by the White House concerned fears possible left-wing groups would engage with Trump supporters and that nobody expected any kind of riot at the US Capitol, noting that Antifa and other far-left groups were planning counter-protests for the same date. Those concerns came after left-wing groups had engaged in violent assaults on Trump supporters in previous cases.
Ornato recalled that Meadows asked Bowser “if she need[ed] any more guardsman. And I remember the number 10,000 coming up, of, you know, ‘The president wants to make sure that you have enough.’ You know, ‘He is willing to ask for 10,000.’ I remember that number. Now that you said it, it reminded me of it. And that she was all set.” Bowser said she had 350 for traffic control and other non-law enforcement activities at the time.
Bowser declined the offer from the White House, asking for only a few hundred National Guard troops and using them in a “very limited capacity.”
“No DCNG personnel shall be armed during this mission, and at no time will DCNG personnel or assets be engaged in domestic surveillance, searches, or seizures of US persons,” Bowser wrote in a letter requesting the DC National Guard. This made sense since Bowser strongly condemned Republican efforts to limit rioting by left-wing political groups during the 2020 riots.
After Bowser turned down Trump’s offer of National Guard troops, Ornato recalled the White House requested a “quick reaction force” supplied by the Department of Defense if needed.
“The only thing I remember with DOD and the National Guard was even though the mayor didn’t want any more National Guard in D.C., that a request was made to have kind of a lack of a better term, a quick reaction force out of Joint Base Andrews being that it was a military installation,” Ornato told J6 investigators in a previously hidden interview. “I remember Chief Meadows talking to DOD about that, I believe. I remember Chief Meadows letting me know that ‘Hey, there was going to be National Guard that’s going to be at Joint Base Andrews in case they’re going to need some more, we’re going to–the Mayor would need any, we’re going to make sure they’re out there.”
Meadows rightly anticipated a large crowd coming to the nation’s capital on that date to protest the questionable 2020 election due to the unusual number of laws and processes that were changed before the November election. The J6 committee blocked an investigation into then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s conduct in the lead-up to J6 and whether she had anticipated a possible security breach at the Capitol as Meadows and the White House did.
Meadows became concerned when organizers estimated approximately 50,000 protesters may attend the Capitol protest, and he wanted to ensure that adequate law enforcement assets could be deployed quickly.
After the White House became aware of the Capitol breach, the White House pushed for additional and immediate help from the Department of Defense through the acting secretary. Miller, however, became frustrated with the slow pace at which that assistance was given, Ornato said under testimony.
“So then I remember the chief [Meadows] saying, Hey, “I'm calling [the] the secretary of defense to get that [quick reaction force] in here,” Ornato said, adding later, “And then I remember the chief telling Miller, ‘Get them in here, get them in here to secure the Capitol now.’”
Ornato testified White House officials grew increasingly concerned with the slow pace of the National Guard response, indicating, “you know, we’ve got to get control of this.” He said he was certain that “[Meadows] understood the urgency, that’s for sure. And he kept, you know, getting Miller on the phone, wanting to know where they were, why aren’t they there yet,” Ornato said.
The Federalist noted that Cheney herself had “secretly orchestrated” a campaign to dissuade the Defense Department from deploying resources on January 6. That campaign involved organizing an op-ed for the Washington Post authored by her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, and other former defense secretaries designed to discourage Miller from taking action even after being requested to do so.
Ornato said Meadows made “strenuous efforts” to speed up the National Guard’s deployment; however, he kept getting met up with excuses, such as, “‘This isn’t just start the car, and we’re there. We have to muster them up, we have to’...so it was constant excuses of–not excuses, but what they were actually doing to get them there,” Ornato said.
Despite Ornato’s testimony, Cheney suppressed it and claimed in the report that Trump “never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or any other day. Nor did he instruct any Federal law enforcement agency to assist.”
Cheney’s report did admit that the Defense Department “ultimately did deploy the Guard,” noting that “Although the evidence identifies a likely miscommunication between members of the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense impacting the timing of deployment, the Committee has found no evidence that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed deployment of the National Guard.” The committee said they recognized “that some at the Department had genuine concerns…that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election.”
Ornato’s testimony confirms testimony offered by Kash Patel, former chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense, who testified in the Colorado Supreme Court hearing about efforts by Democrats to limit the ability of Americans to vote for whomever they wanted. That was the case where the Colorado court overstepped in attempting to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot, a decision that was vacated by a unanimous Supreme Court decision to overturn it.
That court used the J6 Select Committee’s report to rule that Patel’s “testimony regarding Trump authorizing” at least 10,000 National Guard troops was “illogical” and “completely devoid of any evidence in the record.” Because Cheney had hidden Ornato’s testimony from the public record, the Colorado Supreme Court improperly dismissed evidence that would have vindicated Trump.
Aside from confirming claims by Trump and other White House officials that the National Guard had been requested on January 6, Ornato also debunked a conspiracy theory pushed by anti-Trumper Cassidy Hutchinson, who claimed Trump physically overpowered a Secret Service agent to force him to drive to the US Capitol.
“No. I did not know that. I mean, I don’t think–that couldn’t have happened. Nobody had–nobody would be prepared for that. There would be no security to do that. There would be no–I mean, that was like I said, talked about a couple days, whenever it was prior, and it was scored at and moved on, and I never heard about it again,” Ornato said.
Since Ornato’s testimony was hidden, Cassidy Hutchinson, who pushed the wild claim, was unaware of it when she made the bizarre claim that Trump attempted to commandeer the presidential limousine and demand that it be taken to the Capitol. Secret Service sources also debunked that assertion.
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