Page:CTRL0000034609 - Transcribed Interview of Kashyap Pramod Patel, (December 9, 2021).pdf/40

40 [1:05 p.m.]


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Okay. Just let me make sure I'm clear with what you are saying. It is your memory that the President authorized to Secretary Miller, understanding the chain of command, 10,000 to 20,000 troops to be on standby? Available? What terminology would you use?

So, legally—and I haven't talked to DOD General Counsel in some time, and 9 a lot of the notes that you provided, the DOD General Counsel exchanges, have been completely redacted. But it's not a standard; it's a legal issue that we have to follow.

If we were going to ever utilize the National Guard—and that's not just during that time; any time, any Secretary of Defense—the President has to authorize, step one. If he doesn't do so, the Governor of State X can ask for 5 or 5 million, and it doesn't matter how many times he asks, the law forbids—my understanding—the Department of Defense from mobilizing the National Guard.

So, under that analysis of the chain of command, what action did Acting Secretary Miller take upon hearing this?

He knew, I believe—and, you know, you can ask Chris, but my take on that was, we had step one of the two-step legal process from the President to say, I am authorizing X if you need it.

So the Secretary of Defense then makes a decision on whether or not requests come in, and, if they are legally satisfied, talk to the DOD General Counsel, then they come in and work out the numbers.

And I think that's what—I believe that's what Acting Secretary Miller took away from that conversation.