What did the Capitol Police Board decide about National Guard requests before Jan. 6, 2021?
Executive summary
The Capitol Police Board — the three-member panel composed of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol — opted not to pre-authorize a National Guard deployment to the Capitol in the days immediately before January 6, 2021, a decision various bipartisan reviews later concluded contributed to delayed Guard response during the riot [1] [2]. Reporting and committee findings disagree on whether formal written requests were made in advance and on exactly which conversations occurred, producing conflicting accounts of who sought what, when, and why [3] [4].
1. The formal locus of authority: the Capitol Police Board and its role
By statute and practice the decision to request District of Columbia National Guard support for the U.S. Capitol rested with the Capitol Police Board — not with the Mayor or the President alone — and members of that board engaged in informal discussions in the days before January 6 about Guard support but did not move to place Guard troops at the Capitol ahead of the joint session [5] [6].
2. What the Board decided in the run-up: no pre-event Guard deployment
Multiple contemporaneous accounts and the Senate committee’s review indicate that board members, through conversations on January 3–4, concluded not to seek a pre-positioned National Guard force for the Capitol itself, a choice characterized bluntly in some reporting as a decision “not to do so” prior to January 6 [1] [6] [2].
3. Conflicting records on requests from the Capitol Police chief
The former Capitol Police chief, Steven Sund, and the Architect of the Capitol have presented different records: the Senate and House committee report found Sund never submitted a formal written request to the Board in advance of Jan. 6 [3], while other accounts — including Sund’s testimony and elements of the reporting record — describe Sund seeking board authorization on Jan. 4 and being denied, or attempting to secure approvals and encountering delay [4] [6].
4. Offers from the Pentagon and the Board’s pre-event posture
The Defense Department twice proactively offered National Guard assistance in the days before January 6, but those offers were not accepted by the Capitol Police for deployment to the Capitol; Pentagon officials have emphasized that the Capitol Police did not request Guard troops for the Capitol prior to the breach [1] [7]. The DC National Guard report and other reviews note that requests that were made by the District of Columbia focused on crowd management at Metro stations and traffic posts rather than interior Capitol security, reinforcing that the Capitol itself had not sought a robust pre-event Guard presence [8].
5. Consequences and contested lines of responsibility
Bipartisan Senate investigators concluded that the Board’s failure to secure Guard assistance before Jan. 6 left the D.C. National Guard unactivated and un-staged, and that the need for unanimous or unclear approval procedures on the Board constrained rapid action during the attack [2] [3]. Other sources stress ambiguity in recollections and testimony about whether the Board informally discouraged activation, and some officials maintain there were offers and conversations that did not translate into formal actions — a factual dispute with real policy consequences [5] [6].
6. Policy fallout: shifting authority after January 6
Congress and Senate investigators subsequently moved to remove that delay mechanism by changing authority so that the Capitol Police chief can request emergency National Guard assistance without prior Board unanimity, a legislative response premised on findings that the Board’s structure contributed to dangerous delay [9] [2].
Conclusion: a mixed record with clear policy lessons
In sum, the Board decided not to call for or pre-authorize Guard forces to protect the Capitol before Jan. 6, 2021, but the factual record remains disputed about who formally requested assistance and when; independent reviews and later legislation framed the Board’s structure as an institutional failure that delayed the Guard’s timely deployment [1] [3] [9]. Where sources disagree, the record shows the practical result: the National Guard was not staged and ready at the Capitol prior to the attack, and remedying that gap became a bipartisan priority afterward [2] [8].