Some legal experts and Democrats wonder if Trump didn’t deploy security guards to quell the January 6 attack on Capitol, but he does so in LA.
National Guard Major General clarifies the military’s role in Los Angeles
National Guard Major General Scott Sherman outlined the role of military personnel in Los Angeles, saying the military would not make arrests.
- President Trump said the National Guard was needed to suppress “forms of rebellion against the authority of the US government.”
- Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congressional leaders sued the National Guard troops during a January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
- A former Trump-appointed prosecutor told USA Today that the 2020 Geroge Floyd riot was a more appropriate comparison with Trump’s actions in Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON – One group was considered a rampaging mob, whose members beat police officers and beat police officers while invading the seat of American democracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
The other was a more dispersed and coordinated group of violent upsets burning, looting and throwing empty cars at the police.
In the first case, the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, then President Donald Trump did not call on the National Guard despite pleas from local officials and lawmakers. They said the military was needed to prevent further violence from the angry mobs who had stayed in power after losing the 2020 election.
In the second still-intended case, Trump not only deployed the California State Guard against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objection, but also called on 700 active Marines to quell the anti-ice protests that raided off an offensive immigrant attack in Los Angeles.
The contrast between Trump’s actions in 2021, when the US Capitol was covered in violent mobs, and his actions in Los Angeles this month are evidence, his critics say the president is using the US military politically.
But some presidential supporters say that the better comparison isn’t the Capitol riots on January 6th, but that there are the riots and turmoil that shook American cities in the summer of 2020 after George Floyd was murdered.
Floyd’s protests showed Jay Town, who served as a US lawyer for the Northern Alabama district in Trump’s first administration, “we have to launch a small fire before they turn into a bushfire.”
Trump said Los Angeles requires troops to place “a form of rebellion against the authority of the US government.”
According to Democrats and legal experts, the Los Angeles protests are considered more slimy compared to the Jan. 6 riots in that they constitute a rebellion or threat to the federal government.
They blame Trump Trump, who was fired on January 6th and was charged with criminal charges, but the charges were dropped after his re-election, when he deployed soldiers to serve his own political purposes.
“There was no plausible rebellion in Los Angeles,” said Chris Mirasora, a law professor at the University of Houston and a former Department of Defense legal counsel.
Critics saw the cracked mirror image of January 6th at Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard in Los Angeles.
“This is the opposite of January 6th, and Trump allowed his most violent supporters to attack the Capitol on his behalf,” D-Calif Rep. Eric Swalwell told USA Today.
“In both cases, his purpose is confusion,” Swalwell said.
What happened on January 6th, 2021?
Four people died during the attack on Congress on January 6th, and five police officers died in the aftermath – one, four, committed suicide the following day, from a stroke. Approximately 140 other law enforcement officers were injured.
More than 1,575 people have been charged in connection with January 6th, ranging from misdemeanors such as trespassing to felony charges such as assault by a police officer and incitement conspiracy. At least 600 people have been charged with felony charges of assaulting or obstructing law enforcement, according to the Police Enforcement Research Forum.
Damages on January 6 exceeded $2.7 billion, according to a Democrat’s investigation into the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
How much damage does it take in LA?
In the current case, at least nine LAPD officers and an unknown number of protesters have been hurt and mostly minor injuries.
The Los Angeles Police Department has arrested more than 500 people in an eight-day protest. Most of them were arrested on minor charges such as not following or failing to comply with the nighttime curfew.
Authorities said on June 11, the two were charged with throwing firefighters.
The extent of the damage from the current LA protests is unknown, but it is far less important than Jan. 6, according to Democrats and city officials.
What is Trump’s response?
Trump and other administration officials have repeatedly said there was no comparison between Jan. 6 and Los Angeles violence, with California and L.A. officials have forced the president’s hand by not suppressing growing protests.
“A generation of Army heroes did not shed blood on the far coast just to see our country being destroyed by invasion,” Trump told Army soldiers in a speech at Fort Bragg on June 10.
Trump did not make such a declaration four years ago, seeing the unstable nation watched the Capitol attack unfold, and organized groups such as proud boys and sworn keeper militias play a major role.
In 2021, Trump spent 187 minutes monitoring Capitol’s attack on television, but Mobs plundered Congressional offices and hunted for Democrats and his own Vice President Mike Pence, according to a House committee investigating the attack.
A few hours later, after the crowd began to disperse, Trump posted a video on social media at 4:17pm. “I’m going home. We love you, you’re so special.”
Until 5:20pm on January 6th, the first National Guard arrived at the Capitol, with police securing the complex.
“In a bipartisan way, January 6th – violence against the Constitution, violence against Congress, against the US Capitol — we asked the US president to send the National Guard,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) told reporters. “He didn’t do that.”
“Even so, in a contradictory way, he sent the National Guard to California,” Pelosi said on June 10th.
On June 13, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily suspended a federal judge’s order blocking Trump’s security guards mobilization in Los Angeles.
“Small Fire” vs. “Burnfire”
Supporters of Trump’s National Guard in California point to a different set of obstructions to justify his actions.
J. Trump-appointed towns and former Marines from 2017 to 2020 in the Northern Alabama district, and explained the situation more complicated than Pelosi.
He cited a statement by then-Chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Stephen Sand. He begged for National Guard assistance on January 6th, but said it was Congress officials who reported Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that delayed approval.
The town said the appropriate comparison was not on Jan. 6, but that the deployment of the National Guard was deployed in 2020 during the riots following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.
“What we learned as a guy who was in office in 2020 is that we have to put out a small fire before it turns into a bushfire,” Town told USA Today. “President Trump is not going to let him do what happened under failed local and state leadership in Minneapolis and Seattle.
Trump’s orders in Los Angeles
On his first inauguration day in 2025, Trump forgives all but 14 of the approximately 1,270 people convicted of the January 6th rioters.
He and Cabinet members, including Attorney General Pam Bondy, say they will even touch Los Angeles law enforcement officials and prosecute anyone who sues to the fullest extent of the law.
Asked if it was hypocritical in light of Trump’s January 6th pardon, Bondy said, “Well, this is very different.”
“These are the people who are hurting Californians right now,” Bondy said in a on-camera gagguru with a White House reporter. “This is ongoing.”
Newsom, who is suing Trump against the Marines and security guards in Los Angeles, opposed.
“Trump, as long as he serves him, he is not opposed to lawlessness and violence,” Newsom said. “Do you need more evidence than January 6th?”
