Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/155

155 that no one, no one agency, could be in charge of the operation.

I understood from General Milley's perspective why he wanted that, because, within the military operation, you always have unity of command. There's always one person in charge, and everyone falls in line behind that one commander. The problem was, given how fractured the political and legal authority was in D.C., there was no way to place one agency on top of everyone else.

And so what we had to do was coordinate closely and know what everyone else was doing and trying to do and who had what responsibilities.

It appears from the question, as you have it written, though, that DOD believed that DOJ did take on that authority as the lead for the summer. Is that fair to say?

I don't know what he meant by "as it did back at Lafayette Square," and I didn't ask. I wasn't there when Lafayette Square happened. I was still in New York. So I don't know what General Milley's perception was of what was going on at Lafayette Square.

But I didn't chime in and prolong the call. It was just, he made the request, the DAG answered very quickly, "No, we're not going to do that, I'll explain more why later," and we moved on.

Was there a reaction from General Milley at that point when Mr. Rosen said, no, it would not take on the lead?

No.

Okay. So, later—is there anything you want to add about that call that you had on January 3rd?

No. Just, as you can see from the notes, we discussed the, sort of, key locations—the Capitol, Lafayette Square, Washington Monument, Freedom Plaza.