To clear up any misunderstandings about the National Guard issue, all you have to do is flip to Appendix 2 on page 724 on the
Final Report.
DC GOVERNMENT PREPARATION
December 30, 2020, HSEMA briefing. Following the DC HSEMA’s December
30th intelligence briefing, Mayor Bowser, anticipating that President
Trump’s December 19th “will be wild!” tweet would have a big effect on the number of people coming into the District,53 agreed with HSEMA Director
Rodriguez, who thought “the intelligence was showing that we needed toposture ourselves, we needed to brace ourselves, and we needed additional
resources in the city particularly the DC National Guard.”54 MPD Chief
Contee, who attended the December 30th briefing and was seeing similar
intelligence, concurred with the request for the DC National Guard.55
In light of the upcoming holiday weekend, HSEMA Director Rodriguez wanted to expedite the DC request for National Guard assistance.56 On
December 31st, Mayor Bowser requested the assistance of the DC National
698 APPENDIX 1
Guard to assist the MPD at traffic points within the city.57
Mayor Bowser’s
request explicitly limited National Guard assistance to “non-law enforcement activities” so that the MPD could focus on the civil protests and
specified that Guard troops should not be armed.58Army Secretary Ryan
McCarthy approved Mayor Bowser’s request.59