Believe me, I have my eyes keenly focused for any evidence that the Pentagon deliberately slow-walked sending support to the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. And I see plenty of smoke. But, in fairness, I also see some blame from outside the Pentagon, mainly coming from leftover rage over how the military was deployed in June for President Trump’s bible-prop strut across Lafayette Park.

It seems no one really wanted to see the National Guard deployed in the district, and DC mayor Muriel Bowser didn’t ask for more than some assistance in controlling traffic and the metro stations. The House and Senate sergeants-at-arms were also reluctant to see armed military near the Capitol, although their motives are less clear.

Broadly speaking, the Pentagon was still stung from the criticism they’d received over the summer, and some thought racing the Guard to the Capitol might be interpreted as a coup attempt since the DC Guard answers to the president.

The Guard’s tardy arrival looks more like an overall mess than a carefully orchestrated effort to assist the insurrection. But there were still concerning developments, like orders that came down just prior to January 6 that stripped the DC Guard’s commander to act on his own initiative. This caused a delay in deployment of his reserve force of more than an hour.

The bottom line is that there were political considerations on all sides that argued against the military taking appropriate preventative actions based on the available intelligence. It’s also clear that if Trump had been alarmed when he saw his supporters physically assaulting the Capitol Police and ultimately breaching the building, he could have intervened and demanded that the Guard move in immediately. He did not do that.