WASHINGTON — The nation’s military leadership on Tuesday denounced last week’s storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob as a plot to overthrow the government, while federal prosecutors said they were examining more than 160 cases and weighing sedition charges in some of them.
Washington continued to grapple with security concerns and threats of violence from extremist Trump supporters centered around next week’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat. The overrunning of the Capitol drew widening criticism from lawmakers and others, who said federal authorities weren’t prepared for the possibility of violence last week.
In a further sign of a tougher posture, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy has decided to allow National Guard members being sent to Washington through next week’s presidential inauguration to carry weapons, a U.S. defense official said late Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the heads of the branches of the U.S. military called the Jan. 6 assault, in which a violent, pro-Trump mob forcibly entered the Capitol where lawmakers were certifying Biden’s presidential victory, “a direct assault on the U.S. Congress, the Capitol building, and our constitutional process.” The statement also knocked back unfounded claims made by some Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters that he was the election’s actual winner, an unusual situation for a military that typically steers clear of domestic politics.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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