The National Guard, on the other hand, you seem to be misinformed about its status. Most of us work regular ass jobs full time just like everyone else here and we're lucky to get 1/3 of our unit strength to report within a few hours. Plenty of service members don't even live in the same state where they are in the Guard, especially on the East Coast. Then it takes time to make a plan, organize, issue equipment, load/prep vehicles, and roll out.
Finally, NG commanders can't just choose to deploy somewhere on their own because there's an emergency. It has to be authorized by the state governor. I don't know how it works exactly for DC though. The Secretary of the Army was part of a press briefing Wednesday announcing NG deployment, but the NGs for the 50 states aren't part of the Department of the Army, but rather the states and the National Guard Bureau until mobilized under Title 10 authority (not a drop of the hat thing). Maybe the DC Guard is under some direct Executive Branch control which in this case would be bad news, because look who was more than happy to have the Capitol overrun.
There are credible reports of a vacuum in terms of communication or response from the pentagon guard brass. Seems unusual that you have a insurrection at the Capitol and the governor of New Jersey is activating people, sending State Troopers, and trying in vain to reach someone in the Pentagon.
The difference is the Governor of New Jersey directly controls the NJ National Guard. I have no doubt there was confusion about activating the DC Guard, as your sibling reply points out, the President is the Commander in Chief of the DC Guard. However, I doubt the Adjutant General of the DC Guard reports directly to the President, so for sure there was confusion in whatever layers of bureaucracy there are, and of course, the President wasn't exactly helpful in responding to the situation quickly or at all.
It's worth also pointing out that a big issue with National Guard mobilizations is funding. Since service members aren't on salary like the active component, then there has to be money set aside to pay SMs for their activation, someone has to decide which pot of money it's going to come from, authorize its use, etc, etc. It takes time.
In the case of DC (since Posse Comitatus doesn't apply), the capital would be better off having troops from the active component to draw on for emergencies.
Indeed it is. Since DC has no governor, the US president is the CINC of the DC National Guard.
Hence it is particularly damning that while the DCNG was activated two days in advance as the terrorist threat to DC became evident, the White House did not give the go-ahead for them to come to the aid of the Capitol Police.
Apparently this permission eventually came late in the day after events were already under control, reportedly conveyed by the Pentagon on orders of Pence rather than Trump.
Secdef could issue those orders in POTUS’ name, he likely has the delegated authority to do so, but the VP is not in the chain of command and has no authority.
Obviously, the security services stood back and had high level direction to do nothing. They left a few capitol police flapping in the breeze and the cavalry (national guard, other law enforcement) never showed up.
I work near a VA hospital, and a few years ago a deranged man was running around the grounds with a machete and what looked to be a rifle. They activated their protocol and within 10 minutes mutual aid (Federal Protective Service police, State Troopers, local PD were on site.
That didn’t happen. I hope Biden purges the top layers of career management in those police agencies as well as the commanders of the National Guard. They failed the nation.