Pelosi pushes back on Joint Chiefs chairman’s account of Guard deployment on Jan. 6

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman’s account of the National Guard deployment during the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

During an interview on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Wednesday, Mitchell played a clip of an interview with Gen. Mark Milley.

“There was no attempt to delay the deployment of the National Guard, I mean that’s just false,” Milley said in the clip.

Pelosi pushed back immediately after the clip ended. 

“That isn’t false and I was there and I can attest to what happened,” she said. “But let’s hear people talk about it in a commission to find the truth about January 6.”

“I have the highest regard for Gen. Milley, but he doesn’t know the full picture if he presenting the characterization that he just presented,” Pelosi continued. “The fact is that they could’ve been there very much sooner and it would’ve been much less destruction.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi contradicts Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who says there was no attempt to delay National Guard on Jan. 6:

“I have the highest regard for General Milley, but he doesn’t know the full picture …” pic.twitter.com/o21wQg6RNI

— The Recount (@therecount) April 28, 2021

The interview comes amid continuing questions surrounding hesitancy to deploy the Guard as supporters of former President Trump were breaching the Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Police officials and politicians have slammed the Pentagon for what they claimed was a delayed response as law enforcement was being quickly overrun by rioters.

Milley has previously said the response to the rioting was “super fast,” insisting the approval occurred within an hour and that the deployment itself took several hours.

House sergeant-at-arms Maj. General William Walker, who was commander of D.C.’s National Guard at the time, testified last month that Pentagon officials approved deploying the Guard three hours after the Capitol Police Chief placed a “frantic call.”

An undisclosed document obtained by The Associated Press earlier the moth reveled that former President Trump approved activating the Guard three days prior to the rally, but the Guard’s role was restricted to traffic sections and checkpoints across the city.

The news outlet reported that there was hesitancy to display a strong military presence due to criticism of the response to civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd last May.