MSNBC Contributor Frank Figliuzzi Speculates Trump White House Prevented Defense of Capitol: ‘My Gut’s Telling Me There’s More to This Story’

MSNBC contributor Frank Figliuzzi theorized on Wednesday that someone at the White House was “involved” with preventing the National Guard from defending the Capitol during unrest in January.

“This is a kind of typical investigative approach,” Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, said in a segment with MSNBC’s Craig Melvin. “Start with the lower level people. Keep moving your way up and getting some truth. We are getting to the truth now as we work our way up on the Pentagon side. This is falling squarely on the Pentagon in terms of a failure to prepare.”

Figliuzzi opined on the topic as the Senate Homeland Security Committee met to review the events of Jan. 6, when a mob broke into the nation’s Capitol. National Guard troops did not arrive at the scene until 5:27 p.m., after the Capitol had been mostly vacated.

Maj. Gen. William Walker, the National Guard commander in Washington, D.C., told the committee that Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund submitted a request for help at 1:49 p.m., but that Army officials failed to approved it until 5:08 p.m.

Figliuzzi speculated that the White House might have played a role in the decision.

“Here is the next hard question that we need to get to at the next level of hearing,” Figliuzzi said. “Was this merely typical Pentagon bureaucratic snafu, that it takes hours and days to get something figured out? Maybe. Or is this evidence that there was political intervention, that the hand of the White House was involved in this? We are hearing word of optics playing into what this looked like if the Guard deployed. My gut’s telling me there’s more to this story. When you get the secretary of defense saying, ‘No, no, no,’ I’m needing to ask the question, did the White House reach into this decision making?”

Watch above via MSNBC.