A viral tweet from One America News Network host and alt-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec claims that former President Donald Trump offered to let National Guard troops stationed in Washington, D.C., stay in his hotel:
This “scoop” was also featured in an article from OAN and was picked up by other outlets like American Greatness and Trending Politics and right-wing media/entertainment figures like Sebastian Gorka and TPUSA contributor Graham Allen.
Neither Trump nor any representative for him announced publicly that National Guard troops had been invited to stay in his hotel in DC. When contacted, a representative from the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., told The Dispatch Fact Check that the organization had “no comment” on the matter.
The on-duty press representative for the Department of Defense told The Dispatch Fact Check that he was not familiar with such an offer and wasn’t sure “how this offer would have been made” but that in addition to the Department of Defense, there were two other possible ways Trump could have done it: through the National Guard Bureau, which oversees the National Guard at a national level, or through District of Columbia National Guard. Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a Department of Defense liaison to the National Guard Bureau, had not heard anything on the matter either. Both the Secret Service, which oversaw plans for inauguration security, and the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Secret Service, told The Dispatch Fact Check to contact the National Guard.
A press representative for the National Guard Bureau said that “at the bureau level” no such offer had been made by Trump and referred The Dispatch Fact Check to the D.C. National Guard. The D.C. National Guard did not respond to any of The Dispatch Fact Check’s phone calls or emails.
Nahaku McFadden, media operations chief for the National Guard Bureau, noted that National Guard troops stationed in D.C. “already had accommodations for when they are off duty” and that images of National Guardsmen in a garage shows troops who were on duty at the Capitol.
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