What started at two has raised to twelve Army National Guard members that were removed from inauguration duty in Washington, DC. The removal comes from a vetting process to ensure that those guarding the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have no extremist ties.
CNN reports, Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson says two of the individuals were removed due to “inappropriate” comments and texts. The additional 10 removals were due to questionable behavior but not direct ties to extremists, instead, being removed in “an abundance of caution.”
“I’m not concerned as a large part of our organization, if you look at 25,000, we’ve had 12 identified and some of those they are just looking into, it may be unrelated to this, but we want to make sure out of an abundance of caution as I stated earlier that we do the right thing until that gets cleared up,” Gen. Hokanson told reporters.
There are 25,000 National Guard troops on the ground in Washington for the Inaguration Day.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathon hoffman detailed the vetting process, stating, “What the partner organizations have found, but much of the information is, as the general mentioned, unrelated to the events taking place at the Capitol or to concerns that many people on extremism. These are vetting efforts that identify any questionable behavior in the past, or any potential link to questionable behavior, not just related to extremism.”
