Active Duty Troops On Standby Outside Washington, D.C., Being Sent Back To Home Bases
All of the approximately 1,600 active duty soldiers who were airlifted to military bases near Washington, D.C., earlier this week are being ordered back to their home postings, according the Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.
The troops were mobilized to be deployed in the nation's capital if President Trump invoked the 1807 Insurrection Act, as he had threatened to do in a White House Rose Garden statement he made Monday evening.
On Friday, hundreds of former national security officials, diplomats and retired military flag officers signed a strongly worded statement denouncing Trump's calls for using of the military to squelch protests.
During an appearance Friday in the Rose Garden where Trump spoke for several minutes about the ongoing protests, he did not repeat his earlier threat to deploy active duty military forces to states.
In a letter sent to Trump Thursday evening, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser objected to the ongoing deployment of more than 2,000 National Guard troops in the city.
