For the past three years, Democrats and the media have perpetuated the narrative that former President Donald Trump is solely responsible for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and rejected his claim that he wanted to deploy National Guard troops to protect the Capitol ahead of the expected protest.

That narrative has been sharply undermined by the release of interview transcripts with senior military officials who revealed that Trump did request troops to guard the Capitol ahead of time but was rebuffed by senior Pentagon officials because of "optics," according to the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.

The transcripts come from interviews conducted by the Department of Defense Inspector General, the now-defunct House Jan. 6 Select Committee, and the Oversight Subcommittee's ongoing review of those prior investigations.

False narrative debunked

In a statement accompanying the release of the transcripts, Oversight Subcommittee Chair Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) said of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot of 2021, "Pentagon leadership prioritized concerns of optics over their duty to protect lives."

"President Trump met with senior Pentagon leaders and directed them to make sure any events on January 6, 2021 were safe," he continued. "It is very concerning that these Senior Pentagon officials ignored President Trump’s guidance AND misled Congressional Leaders to believe they were doing their job, when they were not."

"The DoD IG’s report is fundamentally flawed. It does not draw conclusions from the interviews they conducted, but pushes a narrative to keep their hands clean," Loudermilk added. "We have many questions for them, and we will continue to dig until we are satisfied the American people know the truth."

Trump requested National Guard troops ahead of time

"The DoD IG claims that the actions at the Pentagon were 'reasonable in light of the circumstances' at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The IG also determined that 'DoD officials did not delay or obstruct the DoD’s response to the [U.S. Capitol Police’s] [Request for Assistance] on January 6, 2021,'" the Oversight Subcommittee said in a two-page summary report. "THE TRANSCRIPTS REVEAL OTHERWISE."

For instance, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley recalled in an interview with the DoD IG how, three days before the riot, then-President Trump told him that "There’s going to be a large amount of protesters here on the 6th, make sure that you have sufficient National Guard or Soldiers to make sure it’s a safe event."

He further noted that Trump added, "Hey, I don’t care if you use Guard, or Soldiers, active duty Soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe."

Likewise, then-Acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller told the Jan. 6 Select Committee that Trump commented that the Pentagon was "going to need 10,000 troops" to guard the Capitol on Jan. 6, but Miller said he wrote that off as unserious "banter" and insisted that "in no way, shape, or form did I interpret that as an order or direction."

However, in his interview with the DoD IG, Miller revealed his contempt for the president and fear that he would "politicize the military" and went on to say that "There was absolutely -- there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol, period," as well as that "The operational plan was this, let’s take the D.C. National Guard, keep them away from the Capitol."

Senior Pentagon leaders were worried about the "optics" of troops guarding the Capitol

While those quotes establish that former President Trump did, in fact, request the deployment of National Guard troops to protect the Capitol ahead of the riot, they don't fully explain why those troops were initially denied and then delayed for several hours after the unrest began on Jan. 6.

For that, the subcommittee released quotes from the former head of the U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, who repeatedly called for National Guard troops to back up his officers during the riot, and multiple senior officers of the D.C. National Guard, who recalled being ready, willing, and able to respond to the riot immediately but were not given clearance to go until several hours later.

The decision to not deploy the troops in time to prevent or swiftly halt the Capitol riot appears to rest with the then-Director of Army Staff Gen. Walter Piatt and his concerns about the bad "optics" of armed military troops guarding the Capitol building -- which in retrospect would have been substantially less than the far worse optics of an unruly mob overrunning the nation's Capitol.