Trump Ignored a Call From the Pentagon During Jan. 6 Capitol Attack as He Kept Trying to Steal the Election

Nikki McCann Ramirez
US-POLITICS-CAPITOL-UNREST - Credit: AFP via Getty Images
US-POLITICS-CAPITOL-UNREST - Credit: AFP via Getty Images

President Trump ignored a Jan. 6 call from Pentagon officials seeking a coordinated response to the Capitol attack, according to national security officials’ testimony to the Jan. 6 committee.

Trump instead was calling Republican senators to ask them to delay certification of the 2020 election, the committee revealed on Thursday. “He was calling senators to encourage them to delay or object to the certification,” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who was leading the proceedings, said of what Trump was doing during the attack. Luria then played testimony of former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany testifying that Trump “wanted a list of the senators.”

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Luria also revealed that in testimony to the committee a former White House employee described a conversation between Eric Hershmann and Pat Cipollone regarding a pending call from the Pentagon seeking to “coordinate on the response to the attack.” Herschmann allegedly turned to Cipollone and said “the president didn’t want anything done.” Cipollone ended up taking the call himself.

Trump was well aware of the situation at Congress. The committee has established that he and his White House team knew within 15 minutes of leaving the stage at the Ellipse that “the Capitol was besieged and under attack.”

Trump’s abdication of his duties as president were immediately clear to White House staff and members of the government. “You’re the commander in chief, you’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America, and there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” Gen. Mark Milley told the committee in an interview.

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