Did Capitol Police request National Guard support on January 6 2021?

1. What was actually requested and when

Multiple contemporaneous records and testimony show Capitol Police leaders sought National Guard personnel: a handwritten timeline and later congressional and media reporting note Sund requested a quick reaction force and roughly 200 Guardsmen during the riot, and the Capitol Police had earlier discussed limited Guard support for Jan. 5–6 ^{[1] [4] [5]}.

2. The immediate crisis: a “frantic” call and a delayed approval

Maj. Gen. William Walker of the D.C. National Guard testified that he received a “frantic” call from Chief Sund at about 1:49 p.m. requesting urgent backup after the Capitol perimeter was breached, and that Department of Defense officials took more than three hours to approve deploying Guard forces to back up police under attack ^{[3] [2]}.

3. Offers, refusals and standing-by before the breach

Three days before the riot the Pentagon offered National Guard manpower to the U.S. Capitol Police and was told it would not be necessary; the Army had also twice offered support in the days shortly before Jan. 6, per reporting that the Capitol Police declined initial offers ^{[6] [7]}. On Jan. 4 there was an approved unarmed activation of D.C. Guard troops for Metro crowd management and traffic control that was limited in scope and subject to many constraints ^{[7] [4]}.

4. Who authorized and who hesitated: the tangled approval chain

At the heart of the delay were the Capitol Police Board, Army and Pentagon chain-of-command dynamics, and concern about “optics”; documents and testimony recount that Sund lobbied the Board for authorization but was not granted it for over an hour, and senior Army staff reportedly advised caution about deploying Guardsmen in uniform because of optics and the risk of inflaming crowds ^{[5] [8] [2]}. The House Oversight report concluded Sund did not submit a formal advance written request to the Board and that disagreements among board members contributed to delay, while Defense timelines show the Pentagon ultimately directed D.C. Guard units to prepare and move after securing approvals ^{[9] [10]}.

5. Conflicting narratives and why accounts diverge

Multiple officials have offered sharply different recollections—Capitol Police leaders say they repeatedly sought Guard help and were rebuffed; Army officials stress a complex, deliberative chain of approvals and say they were reluctant to send troops without a formal request and legal cover—producing competing claims about who “refused” or “delayed” a call for troops ^{[8] [11] [12]}. Independent timelines and fact-checking note both that offers of Guard help were made before Jan. 6 and that urgent requests were made during the attack, but they differ on exactly when formal authorization was sought and granted ^{[6] [5]}.

6. What the public record proves and what remains unsettled

The public record proves Capitol Police requested National Guard support both in the days before Jan. 6 (limited requests) and urgently during the riot, and that Defense officials delayed authorization for several hours ^{[6] [1] [2]}. Precise minute-by-minute accountability—who explicitly declined an immediate deployment, the timing of every internal phone call, and how much discretionary authority each official believed they had—remains contested in testimony and redacted documents, leaving unresolved questions that subsequent investigations and reports have only partially answered ^{[9] [10]}.