Troops may remain in Washington

Most of the 26,000 US National Guard members sent to the nation's capital for the presidential inauguration have left, but 7,000 may be asked to voluntarily stay until March 12 to conduct security, officials said.

The National Guard Bureau said on Thursday, the day after President Joe Biden was sworn in, that of the nearly 26,000 Guard troops deployed to the capital, only 10,600 remain on duty.

Any Guard members who stay past the original 31-day mobilization order will do so on a voluntary basis, Nahaku McFadden, a spokesman for the Guard Bureau, told Military.com.

"We are not going to make anybody stay."

The troops will provide security, communications, medical evacuation, logistics and safety support to local and federal agencies, officials said.

Guard officials said that troops deployed did not face a single security threat on inauguration day.

Nearly 200 members of the National Guard deployed to Washington days before the inauguration have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said.

On Thursday hundreds of Guard members were told to leave the Dirksen Senate Office building and moved into a parking garage, a Guardsman told Politico. The garage had no internet and one toilet, he said.

After news and social media reports about troops in the garage, a number of lawmakers from both parties called for Guard members to be allowed to take rest breaks inside the Capitol complex. Guard members were allowed to return to indoor spaces to rest, Guard officials said.

National Guard and Capitol Police officials offered conflicting explanations about why troops were moved from indoor resting areas to the garage.

Republican governors Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas and Greg Gianforte of Montana said they ordered their National Guard troops to return to their home states following reports of troops in the garage.

"They don't complain but it's my job to really protect the team and make sure they are not put into those substandard conditions, so we pulled them out," Sununu said on Saturday.

"These folks are soldiers," DeSantis said on Fox News on Friday. "They're not Nancy Pelosi's servants. This comes on the back end of them trying to investigative the backgrounds of our Guardsmen. Florida, we did not let them go into their political beliefs. That was totally inappropriate."

Biden expressed his dismay on Friday to General Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard, about how the troops had been treated, said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.