Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said the White House delayed green-lighting his state’s National Guard to move in and help quell riots at the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday.
During a Sunday morning appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” anchor Jake Tapper asked Hogan whether President Donald Trump was acting on his purported “sympathies … with the terrorists” in hesitating to call National Guard troops to assist Capitol police during the riot.
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“I think we are going to figure that out, Jake, in the after-action report,” Hogan said. “I don’t know the answer to that question. All I know is that we were trying to get answers and we weren’t getting answers. It could have been just the fog of what’s going on.”
Hogan recalled talk about the National Guard not being “the first line of defense” because they don’t have police training.
“I don’t know all the reasons for the delay,” he said. “I can just tell you that we were taking actions immediately, we were ready, and there was a delay. And I was getting called from the leaders of Congress pleading with me to get our guard into the city and we were mobilizing to do that. And we were waiting to get the okay. I can’t tell you why.” (RELATED: Capitol Police Turned Down Help Before Riot Started)
The Maryland governor explained that mobilization time caused the Guard to not arrive until Thursday, but he criticized Capitol police and federal law enforcement for not being “prepared.”
“Why were we coming in to do a clean-up operation afterwards?” he asked.