What did the House Select Committee conclude about the role of the White House in National Guard deployment on Jan. 6?

1. The Committee’s core finding: no presidential order to deploy

The Committee’s final report states plainly that, although the President had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the D.C. National Guard, he “never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day,” and investigators concluded that Trump did not issue an order to send the Guard or other federal support to the Capitol ^{[4] [1]}. The report framed that absence of presidential command as central to understanding why National Guard forces arrived hours into the attack, and it documented the Committee's review of dozens of witnesses and hundreds of documents in reaching that conclusion ^[2].

2. Authority, delegation and the chain of control

The Committee emphasized that the President has direct command authority over the D.C. National Guard, but that authority is customarily exercised through the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army, and that operational control on January 6 had been further constrained by memos limiting Guard employment amid political sensitivity ^{[5] [6]}. The report explains that, in practice, the decision to deploy was delegated to Pentagon officials and that Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy played pivotal roles in authorizing activation and the timing of movement ^{[5] [2]}.

3. Delay explained as miscommunication and caution, not malfeasance

After reviewing timelines and interviews, the Committee concluded that more than three hours elapsed because of likely miscommunications among civilian leaders at the Department of Defense and understandable caution among some officials who worried about the optics and legality of deploying troops in a politically fraught environment; the Committee expressly found “no evidence that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed deployment” ^{[2] [3]}. The report also notes that some DoD actors had “genuine concerns” that President Trump might attempt to use military forces to influence the electoral certification, which shaped decisions to be cautious ^[2].

4. Conflicting testimony and partisan counters

The Committee’s findings sit amid competing narratives: testimony and public statements — including from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley — have been read to imply Vice President Pence requested Guard assistance, and associates have suggested inside-the-White-House conversations about troop numbers and safety took place, though not amounting to a deployment order ^[7]. Conservative critics and House Administration Republicans have accused the Committee of suppressing material and of bias, and the White House site later posted accusations that the Committee hid evidence or mischaracterized Pelosi’s role, assertions that the Committee and fact-checkers have disputed and that do not overturn the Committee’s central conclusions ^{[8] [9]}.

5. What remains contested or unresolved

The Committee left some operational ambiguities unresolved in public view: while it documented memos, phone logs and interviews that map the chain of approvals, it acknowledged limitations in reconstructing every internal conversation and relied on available evidence to rule out intentional delay rather than to provide a perfect minute-by-minute causal chain ^{[2] [10]}. Republicans continue to produce alternative timelines and claim omitted or reinterpreted transcripts change the picture, and some DoD transcripts and inspector-general materials produced later fueled further disputes about how urgency was perceived inside the building of the executive branch ^{[6] [11]}. The Committee’s core conclusion — no presidential order and no intentional DoD delay — stands in its final report, but the contest over competing interpretations and selective disclosures persists in political debate ^{[2] [3]}.